Part 5 - Matthew 12:10-21 - Heal Me Or Kill Me But Not This! Series

Part 5 - Matthew 12:10-21 - HEAL ME OR KILL ME BUT NOT THIS!

As I talked with Nancy that day she said,"I pray to God every night and ask Him why He has been so unfair to me. Why did He leave me alive?" She is an elderly woman suffering the results of a stroke. She said "My Mother died of a stroke. Why didn’t He take me too, instead of leaving me like this? It is so unfair. Why is God so unfair?" Where is the JUSTICE of God when you end up with a stroke instead of dying in the process? How am I supposed to answer that?

In obedient response to Jesus a man with a deformed hand in Matthew 12:13 reaches out and is HEALED. Nancy blames God for NOT HEALING her and then NOT KILLING her. The Pharisees blame Jesus for HEALING on the Sabbath and they want to KILL Him (Matthew 12:14). Others gladly receive healing and restoration (Matthew 12:15). It seems God can’t please anyone. TO CARE OR NOT TO CARE - that is the question.

In Matthew 12:15 Jesus HEALS ALL THE SICK among them. How cool is this! My grandson would not have had a cold or tonsillitis if he had been there. My friend Fred would not have trouble walking because his arthritis would be gone and Alice would be able to breath properly again. Amelia would stretch out her stroke affected hand and not dribble food from the right side of her face.

So WHERE IS HE NOW? Do all these people somehow happen to be in the wrong century and the wrong country and is Jesus still in the "have LIFE TO THE FULL" business or is it now the "LIFE WHICH IS CRUEL" business? Has He CHANGED His purpose? Is He now into STROKES! Perhaps a few "RANDOM ACTS OF BLINDNESS, arthritis and dementia".

What about Nancy? She would say to God "HEAL ME OR KILL ME BUT NOT THIS!" I can’t help but take that one step further and ask why is it that Nancy can be so adamant about not including God in her life and then blame Him when things go wrong? Is God TAKING IT OUT on Nancy? Or is it Nancy who is being UNFAIR? What would it look like if God was really fair according to our standards?

In Matthew 12:20 (NLT) a prophecy from Isaiah about Jesus is given. It says "He will NOT CRUSH THE WEAKEST (or BRUISED) REED OR PUT OUT A FLICKERING CANDLE. Finally He will cause JUSTICE to be victorious. And His Name will be the HOPE of all the world."

So let me get this right. Why did He come? He came for a number of reasons but essentially He comes to give me HOPE in a world that is BRUISED by injustice and pain. He comes to heal, not to break the "BRUISED REED". He comes to RESTORE my life when I am hurt and crushed by life’s experiences, discouraged to the point of giving up, and depressed to the max. He comes to encourage me when I am weak and my motivation for life is a "FLICKERING CANDLE".

And then when I see Him for who He is I can’t do anything but care for others also. I am able to put Thessalonians 5:11-14 into practise "Therefore encourage one another and build up one another ... encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone" (NASB95)

I prayed with Nancy that day, that God would show her His purposes for her life as well as heal her. I assured her that God wasn’t into giving people strokes or into killing them. That was more the kind of thing Satan would do, not God. In John 8:44 Jesus says that Satan "... was a murderer from the beginning..." (NLT). In John 10:10 (NIV) Jesus says "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL." So Jesus makes it clear that His purpose is not to TAKE something from us that we have, but to RESTORE something to us that has been stolen.

Will Nancy be healed? I don’t know. I don’t have the full picture of what God is doing. I do know that I can experience life to the full as I know Jesus personally, whatever circumstances I face. "He will not break the bruised reed" (Matthew 12:20). I have HOPE in Him.

God bless you Church as you make a choice to respond to God and come under His authority rather than blame Him for what goes wrong. I can see a distorted picture of Him through the glasses of my circumstances and sin, or I can seek Jesus in my pain and begin to see Him for who He really is. In Him there is always HOPE.

Pastor Ross