Powerlessness Is the Key

Jesus started off the most famous sermon ever preached with this simple line: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). There’s just something about that awareness of our own need, the knowledge of the limits of our own abilities, and the willing dependence on God. As some of the old saints would say, “The Holy Spirit is attracted to humility.” Perhaps this is why it’s difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God - they (we?) are too self-sufficient.

Spend some time in the passage today just letting it speak to you. This is what we looked at yesterday in church, and there was plenty of collective sighing going on when it came to seeing Jesus’s radical embrace of this woman. In so many ways, she defined what it meant to be ‘poor in spirit.’

As you read through this passage, pay attention not only to the word or phrase that catches your mind, but also to the word or phrase that awakens your heart. Why do the words or phrases stand out to you? What might you like to say to God in response?

As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”

Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” Luke 8:42-48