Are You Willing To Fight?

Let's read in Mark 5: 25-34: (also found in Matt. 9: 19-22, Luke 8: 42b-48): 25. And there was a woman in the crowd who had a hemorrhage for twelve years. (Lev. 15: 25 states that if the menstrual flow continues longer than normal, it causes the women to be ceremonially unclean for as long as it continues). 26. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors through the years and had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she was worse. 27. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched the fringe of his robe. 28. For she thought to herself, "If I can just touch his clothing, I will be healed." 29. Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel that she had been healed! 30. Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" 31. His disciples said to him, "All this crowd is pressing around you. How can you ask, 'Who touched me?'" 32. But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. 33. Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and told him what she had done. 34. And he said to her, "Daughter your faith has made you well. Go in peace. You have been healed."

Are you willing to be like this woman with the issue of blood? She was a fighter! There was a crowd pressing around Jesus, a crowd so thick that they were all touching one another - but she was determined to work her way through to Him. Maybe she crawled on her hands and knees to be able to reach Him, or just pushed through the crowd - but, by faith, she knew if she could just touch the tassel on His garment she would be healed! Her life is on the line, just like the lepers in the Old Testament (2 Kings 7:1 and following), they could sit there and die or go to the enemy camp and see if there was something there to eat. She could keep bleeding and eventually die, (for she spent all her money on doctors - have you spent all your money on doctors too? How desperate are you?) or she could fight her way through the crowd to Jesus.

Her life was also on the line, in another way too, for being ceremonial unclean, if she was caught in the crowd, defiling a rabbi, she could be stoned to death. So here are her alternatives: die by bleeding, die by stoning or being healed by Jesus. She was desperate! Again I say, "How desperate are you? What are you willing to lay on the line to reach Jesus? What "crowds" do you have to fight through to reach Him? Are you willing to really get into the "fight of faith" to get your healing, deliverance or whatever it is you really need in your life?

Who or what is your "crowd"? She had a physical crowd of people restricting her from walking up to Jesus, but she probably also had a spiritual wall of "religious" thinking - rules and regulations - from trying to keep her from Jesus. Satan himself and his cohorts were also trying to block her path. How many "things" are trying to block your path? Are people's words blocking you? Are your words blocking you? Are you walking in fear? Are you believing the words of doctors over the words of Jesus? Jesus took our healing for us 2000 years ago - do you believe it? Do you speak it? Are your words "crowding" out your healing, deliverance etc.? Whose voice are you listening too? Is it a voice of death and destruction or the voice of life? Jesus' voice is the voice of life - His words are truth and life! Don't know His words - read the Bible, listen to anointed biblical teachings! Is sin, bad habits, hurts - your "crowd"? Repent and forgive! Whatever your "crowd" is -fight, fight through it, seek out your healer, deliverer - Jesus - and just like the women with the issue of blood, reach and grab hold of the tassel of His garment and receive your healing. Fight through doubt, fear, unbelief, erroneous teachings, clean up bad habits and incorrect speech, get out of sin, do what you need to do, but fight through! (This is the way I had to fight). God gave us His Word, but He requires us to act on it. The lepers in the Old Testament story got up and started walking (they did something), the blind man had to go wash in the pool of Siloam, the cripple had to stand up, pick up his mat and go home. The woman with the issue of blood had to fight through the crowd to get to Jesus. She also most likely had to fight allot of fear to get herself there, even within the crowd. She probably had to fight fear of being trampled or stoned to death.

I encourage you today, take up your fight and seek out and find Jesus! By faith, take hold of His Word - who is Jesus - and win your battle!!

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Written by Marcia Loofboro, Hole In The Heart Ministries 1-28-08