–THE PHARISEES ARE HAVING A FIT!
How do you calm someone down when they are having a fit of rage and anger? What I have learned from being a child, parent, teacher, and servant of God’s church is this: Telling them to calm down is not the answer! It is hard to calm down a person who is raging because what they are seeing and experiencing is throwing off their thinking and disrupting their normal lives of getting their own way. It is difficult to almost impossible to calm down a raging person who is irrational in their moment of craziness. There is no reasoning with them that will take place, only more rage. A mental and emotional shift is taking place and we need to be the ones who stand by ready to love and care for them. Be the one who prays and loves, for we have all had these emotional fits that shift our thinking and change our perspective in life. Realize that someone prayed for you.
Is there a doctor in the house, we need help! Why, yes there is…Jesus! Jesus points the fit-throwing Pharisees back to the Scripture—the Scripture they have read pompously and religiously in the synagogue. However, these leaders have added laws with ways to make money off the poor among them while building more power over the people who are simply trying to survive a life in a world where the Romans are the top oppressors. The religious teachers, priests and scribes play games of manipulation with the Romans while holding on to their power over the people of God. When their way of life is threatened, their former belief system challenged, what do they do? They throw a fit! They are very human. They refuse to see who Jesus is and why He came.
Matthew 9:1-13, The Message
Who Needs a Doctor?
1-3 Back in the boat, Jesus and the disciples recrossed the sea to Jesus’ hometown. They were hardly out of the boat when some men carried a paraplegic on a stretcher and set him down in front of them. Jesus, impressed by their bold belief, said to the paraplegic, “Cheer up, son. I forgive your sins.” Some religion scholars whispered, “Why, that’s blasphemy!”
4-8 Jesus knew what they were thinking, and said, “Why this gossipy whispering? Which do you think is simpler: to say, ‘I forgive your sins,’ or, ‘Get up and walk’? Well, just so it’s clear that I’m the Son of Man and authorized to do either, or both. . . .” At this he turned to the paraplegic and said, “Get up. Take your bed and go home.” And the man did it. The crowd was awestruck, amazed and pleased that God had authorized Jesus to work among them this way.
9 Passing along, Jesus saw a man at his work collecting taxes. His name was Matthew. Jesus said, “Come along with me.” Matthew stood up and followed him.
10-11 Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew’s house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them. When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus’ followers. “What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and misfits?”
12-13 Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”
WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?
“Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.” –Jesus, the Doctor of complete healing
Jesus came to bring order to the chaos of confusion about who God is and what He wants for His people. But to get their attention, it will disrupt current thinking. The Doctor has come into the neighborhood of humanity to listen to people while examining their hearts. He investigates their minds and then fills their empty souls with His love and compassion. The Doctor heals, restores, and eventually does the ultimate—Jesus will fulfill all Scripture by “carrying our sins” to the cross of punishment that should have been ours to endure.
Jesus is the compassionate Healing Doctor who brings healing of all kinds to people of all walks of life. If that wasn’t enough, Jesus, who did no wrong, will pay for our sins. Camp on that thought for a moment. Then consider this: In that moment of time, with all the sins of the world, then and now, placed on His shoulders, God must look away from His Son. God cannot be where sin is so He turns His face from His Son until “It is finished” and the debt paid in full. Wow.
But the mission wasn’t complete with what man did to Jesus. God restored Jesus with full resurrection power causing life to flow through His veins once more! This resurrection power sent Jesus to hell and back again to defeat our real enemy, The Tempter, as well as death. Yes, Jesus rose from death to full life to walk around in His scarred body for all His followers to see, touch and feel. Further proof that God does what He says He will do.
Yes, Jesus is the “Doctor in the house” who came for the sick, not the healthy with healing in ways no one else could offer. Jesus also restored our relationship with God, the ultimate goal. He came to restore us from the sickness of sin in humanity, the sick and broken, to full health and life eternal—All because of God’s amazing love for us! “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
The Doctor is in and waiting to see you! Don’t reject Him, run to Him and be healed and set free to live, really live!
Lord,
Thank you for this lesson that caused gratitude to well up in my heart to overflowing with praises on my lips for all you have done for me, in me and through me. Thank you for healing and restoration! Thank you for saving my soul. Daily I come for your cleansing, renewing, refreshing, and feeding of my heart, mind and soul and you deliver! Thank you for restoring the joy of your salvation at work by you in me. Thank you for deliverance from the enemy. You are Life. You are Hope. You are Savior and Lord to me. You are all I need! I pray for those who need you to run to you now…
In Jesus Name, Amen
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 