Impoverished Ministry of Jesus

“The well is deep” – and a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew!

During the recent Kairos retreat weekend, I had a man sitting next to me who was suffering terribly. He had been in an accident which injured his leg. The principal artery was damaged and blood flow to the toes of his feet was limited. He was in constant pain, waking up at night in tears according to another resident of his dorm. Yet he was determined to make it through the weekend. I suggested he simply sit there and not try to stand when we did or move to chapel when we did, but he insisted that he wanted everything the weekend had to offer. 

I prayed that he would have the strength to make it through. During the singing of Jesus on the Mainline, one of the verses tells us :”If you need a healing, tell Him what you want.” The man raised his hands straight up to heaven and by the look on his face it was obvious first that he was telling Him what he wanted and then that he received it. His pain vanished. He came in the following morning dancing. He was pain free the rest of the weekend. 

“We impoverish His ministry the moment we forget He is Almighty; the impoverishment is in us, not in Him. We will come to Jesus as Comforter or as Sympathizer, but we will not come to Him as Almighty. ” I wanted Jesus to comfort, sympathize and love the man. There wasn’t enough in me to call for his healing. I don’t know why. I have seen Jesus heal before. I guess this man’s injury was too great. There was talk of amputating part of his limb. For me God could handle headaches, but not this? 

“The reason some of us are such poor specimens of Christianity is because we have no Almighty Christ. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying – “Of course He cannot do any thing,” and we struggle down to the deeps and try to get the water for ourselves. Beware of the satisfaction of sinking back and saying – “It can’t be done”; you know it can be done if you look to Jesus. The well of your incompleteness is deep, but make the effort and look away to Him.”

He is deeper and mightier than our need. Trust Him. He is almighty  and you will

Be blessed.