A Saviour For All
When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”
Luke 7:13 (NIV)
While I love the Gospel of John and the stories of Jesus recorded in it, Luke 7 is my favourite Bible chapter. In Luke 7 there are four important stories about Jesus.
The first story has Jesus healing a man from a distance. Messengers had asked that He come to heal the servant of a Roman army officer. On the way, another message came asking Jesus to speak the word and the officer’s servant would be healed. Jesus did so and then commended the man’s faith.
In the second story, Jesus and the disciples came across a funeral procession. The deceased man was the only son of a widow, and her only means of support. Jesus had compassion on her, stopped the procession, and brought the young man to life. So our Lord demonstrated His compassion, and His power over death.
The third is a story is about Jesus responding a question put to Him by John the Baptist. John had suffered in prison for many months and seemed to be having doubts about his testimony of Jesus. So he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask if He was the expected Messiah. Jesus answered kindly to the question and, assisted a person who was having a difficult time and doubting what they had done in the past.
Finally Jesus is seen at a dinner, and allowing a repentant, sinful woman to touch Him. This was a social scandal for good Jews of Jesus’ time. He offered the woman a word of forgiveness. Of course, the Jews knew that only God could forgive sins. So we see here that Jesus both claimed to be God and demonstrated that God allowed sinners into His presence.
Can you find a more diverse set of scenes about the glory of Christ than this chapter of Scripture? Here we have a mosaic of our Lord’s glory. We see how He rules over everything in creation, and can heal the most stubborn diseases.
We witness how He tenderly deals with a person who suffers from doubts of faith. Finally we read of how willingly He allows sinful (but repentant) people to come and touch Him. With such a glorious set of scenes showing the many facets of our Lord’s character, how can anyone doubt the interest of our Lord in them personally?
Jesus is the Saviour for people of all sorts, of all social levels, with all kinds of medical, spiritual and social, and economic problems.
Jesus desires to bless and care for the needy, regardless of their problems. He wants you to seek Him and ask for your deepest spiritual needs to be met.
“Remember your promise to me; it is my only hope. Your promise revives me; it comforts me in all my troubles.“ (Psalm 119:49-50 NLT)