"Abundant Life Can Be Yours Today" Series

The Ultimate Decision

August 19. 2014

When I was in 8th grade I loved to daydream. I should say when did I stop? I can remember being in a far away place and the students starting to laugh. Then I realized that the teacher had asked me a question and only then did I leave my far away place to come back into the classroom. Today some 48 years later I love to study the things of God and I can finally focus. It is amazing how we can read one passage one day and then read it again another day and it has two different meanings. That is the Lord’s Spirit living inside of us teaching us His word. This morning I read over a passage that stopped me in my tracks and for the last 90 minutes I have been researching it. This is the passage.

Mark 7:32-35 “here some people brought to Him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place His hand on him. After He took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put His fingers into the man’s ears. Then He spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!”(which means “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.”

Jesus put His fingers in the man’s ears and then what did Jesus do? Jesus spit! It does’t say where he spit but with both fingers in the man’s ears he had to spit on the ground. I looked up the greek word pronounced (ptyo’) and it is to spit or to spit out.

Have you ever notcied that Jesus healed MANY different ways so we would not try to emulate Him. But there was one thing though that Jesus did all the time in His healings. To give you a hint I reference

John 5:30 “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”

Anytime Jesus healed he looked to heaven or prayed to His Father in heaven for the POWER to heal. If Jesus said BY MYSELF I can do nothing then why do we try to do so many things in this world in our own strength? While researching this miracle I ran across a very deep and profound exposition on this verse by Mclaren. Please read it slowly to understand the power of OUR preyers, The power of YOUR Prayers.

McClarens Expositions

Christ has set us the example. Let our prayers ascend as His did, and in our measure the answers which came to Him will not fail us. For us, too, ‘praying, the heavens’ shall be ‘opened,’ and the peace-bringing spirit fall dove-like on our meek hearts. For us, too, when the shadow of our cross lies black and gaunt upon our paths, and our souls are troubled, communion with heaven will bring the assurance, audible to our ears at least, that God will glorify Himself even in us. If, after many a weary day, we seek to hold fellowship with God as He sought it on the Mount of Olives, or among the solitudes of the midnight hills, or out in the morning freshness of the silent wilderness, like Him we shall have men gathering around us to hear us speak when we come forth from ‘the secret place of the Most High.’ If our prayer, like His, goes before our mighty deeds, the voice that first pierced the skies will penetrate the tomb, and make the dead stir in their grave-clothes. If our longing, trustful look is turned to the heavens, we shall not speak in vain on earth when we say, ‘Be opened!’”

Today the darkness many be overbearing but there is the brightest light imaginable and He is Lord. Jesus Christ died a horrible death so we could have full access to the Father in the precious name of Jesus. All of our prayers open the heavens to work. We don’t need to know how and we don’t know how but prayers work all the time. God answers all prayers immediately but sometimes we need to wait for it’s perfect outcome from the Lord’s perfect purpose in our lives.

So know this.

1. God still heals - not man

2. God can use you to ask for healing But it is God alone for His perfect purpose to heal you.

3. Please pray and believe. The Lord says that why would any GOOD father withhold good from his sons and daughters? How much more does the God of the Universe desire to give great gifts to us.