The Issue

Today God dealt with me about the woman with the issue of blood. It was is an interesting story because it talks about the power of faith, but it also talks about how God can touch us to stir up a move and change in us. If you have your bibles (lol my baptist upbringing) please turn to (MAR 5:25-34) or read below.
“A large crowd followed and pressed around Him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, ‘If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.’ Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from Him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ ‘You see the people crowding against you,’ His disciples answered, ‘and yet you can ask, “Who touched Me?”’ But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and knelt at His feet, and trembling with fear, told Him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering’” .

What I found to be interesting was that God had allowed her flesh to be afflicted so that it stirred up in her a faith that she would not have, if she had not went through that situation. I find it amazing how God can teach us lessons by touching us and sometimes afflicting our flesh. This move of God stirred in her the spirit of long suffering, determination, and faith. You see this elsewhere in the bible when God allowed Job's flesh to be afflicted, it taught him meekness, patience, obedience, and submission. God will sometimes use the affliction of the flesh to teach us a lesson, we would otherwise be reluctant to learn. And last but not least was Jacob, the man who stole his brothers blessing and was selfish, was touched by God. Genesis 32:24-32 says that he wrestled with an angel of the lord, and when the angel saw that he could not over power him he touched his hip. In this you see that God stirred up in Jacob the want for a blessing, and the want for a change, thus changing his name to Israel and blessing his seed. I find it funny because God has taught me the ways of his spirit through the affliction of my flesh, it has taught me to be patient and look to God. If I were to leave you with one thing this evening, it would be to embrace the affliction and watch it change your life. God uses this as a tool to perfect us to the image he wants for us, and the image he wants others to see of us.