Before I continue with these devotions based on ‘extra material’ that we couldn’t fit into last Sunday’s sermon (as promised here), I just want to URGE you to invite someone to be your guest this weekend, for the most creative approach we’ve EVER tried to communicate the gospel, as we look at “Vintage Jesus: His Message”.  Trust me, you don’t want to miss this!

Now for today’s devotion, please read Matthew 15:29-31 in The Message.

Gotta love Eugene Peterson’s language of the man on the street:

• Love the fact that “tons” of people came to visit Jesus – no doubt, each with their own perception of who He was & what He might do-

• Especially glad that his ‘visitors’ brought others with them: described here as the paraplegic, the blind, the maimed, the mute—all sorts of people in need!  I like that because (a) there are NO needs too big (or too small!) for Jesus (consider ‘parapalegic’ or ‘maimed’, and how we might view the likelihood of them being healed); and (b) because Jesus always welcomes all sorts of people in need!  May every CLC campus always attract people in need!  May we ever be a hospital for the broken instead of a museum for model Christians!

• (my favorite) Note that the visitors “more or less threw them down at Jesus’ feet, to see what we would do with them”!  How would you describe their perception of Jesus?  Non-committal: ‘Wait & see‘?  Skeptical: “Let’s see what you can do, big guy“? Or just sincerely questioning: ‘what will you do’?

• Regardless what their perception may have been, I love the next sentence: “He healed them” (period).  That’s because Jesus is Jehovah-Rapha!
  

• Don’t overlook the results: “mutes speaking, the maimed healthy, the paraplegics walking around, the blind looking around“.  Selah.  Any one of those results today & we’d be on national news!  I’m really not so concerned that CLC become famous, but I would love to see the Name of Jesus exalted in that way, so I’m praying, “do it again, Lord”!

• Afterward, they let everyone around them know that God was “blazingly” alive among them.  Sounds right.  Can we genuinely let folks around us in on that secret?

May this whet your appetite for MORE of the demonstration of God’s Spirit in your life, and at CLC!  What’s your perception of Jesus now?