#DailyDevotion Jesus Came To Teach Us & Free Us
Luk 6:17-19 And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, (18) who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. (19) And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.
Jesus had needed some alone time in prayer. That is where he was coming from in verse seventeen. This should give us some pause. If the Son of Man would spend regular time alone with God in prayer how much more so should we who are fallen, frail human beings. We all have a need of refreshment with our Father in heaven.
Having been refreshed through a time of prayer Jesus comes down from the mountain to continue his ministry. He is met by a great multitude of people. People had come from Judea and Jerusalem and the coast of Tyre of Sidon. New had gotten out there’s a new rabbi in town and he might be the messiah. He taught with authority and he healed people of their diseases. Now the crowds may or may not have believed Jesus was the messiah. They hoped he was a prophet whom God had sent to teach them and to bring healing to them. Indeed many a person has traveled and spent much to find a healer today often only to be disappointed. But Jesus never left people disappointed who believed in him.
The people came for a twofold reason, to hear Jesus and to healed by him. Jesus didn’t fail them. He taught them the word of God with authority and he healed all their diseases and cast out unclean spirits from those afflicted with them. And power came out from Jesus to heal all who would touch him. We might remember the account of the woman with a blood disease who touched the hem of his garment. As it is written, Mal 4:2 “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” The wings were the hem and the tassels in Jesus’ garment.
The healings accompanied the teaching of Jesus and of the apostles to demonstrate that Jesus’ teaching indeed was authoritative and from God. The confirmed the faith of those who heard it that Jesus is the Messiah. The apostles would write down these teachings from Jesus in what we call the Bible or the Scriptures. They rest of the work and witness of Jesus and the apostles. Today God still works miracles here and there according to his good will and pleasure. However, the ultimate healing we are all looking forward to is the resurrection of the flesh. Even if pastors continued to heal people of all their diseases, they would still face temporal death at some point in time. Jesus provides though the ultimate fix of our ailments in the resurrection.
Now pastors still speak with the authority of Jesus when they teach what Jesus taught. The can and do bring the light of God into a darkened world. If anyone does have an unclean spirit or a demon possessing them, they do have the authority of Christ to free that person of that unclean spirit. This is done mostly in baptism but can occur outside of that rite. This still continues to this day because it is the purpose for which Jesus came into the world, to free men from the power of the devil and to give them the freedom won by him through his death and resurrection.
Heavenly Father, you sent your son Jesus Christ to teach, heal and free people from affliction from the devil. Have your Son send to us men who will teach us all he taught his disciples and through their preaching and prayer free us from the power of the devil. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.