Who Touched My Robe?

What would you say if someone asked you what your gifts in life are?  Would you say; Service, Care giving,  Praying, Comforting, Healing, Communicating, Educating, Counseling?  Perhaps something creative like  music, decorating, cooking, sewing, crafting, building etc.  or maybe you have a heart for children, young adults, inner city kids, financially supporting causes like widows, orphans, the homeless or natural disasters?

If you do know what your gifts and talents are, do you use them to serve yourself or to serve others?  Chances are if you get that feeling that you don’t know your purpose in life, or feel empty and unfulfilled you aren’t using your gifts to serve somebody other than yourself.

I want to draw attention to a scripture in Mark, when Jesus was in the midst of giving away what God had placed in Him…

A woman who had suffered a condition of hemorrhaging for twelve years—a long succession of physicians had treated her, and treated her badly, taking all her money and leaving her worse off than before—had heard about Jesus. She slipped in from behind and touched his robe. She was thinking to herself, “If I can put a finger on his robe, I can get well.” The moment she did it, the flow of blood dried up. She could feel the change and knew her plague was over and done with.

³⁰ At the same moment, Jesus felt energy discharging from him. He turned around to the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?” ³¹ His disciples said, “What are you talking about? With this crowd pushing and jostling you, you’re asking, ‘Who touched me?’ Dozens have touched you!” ^32-33 But he went on asking, looking around to see who had done it. The woman, knowing what had happened, knowing she was the one, stepped up in fear and trembling, knelt before him, and gave him the whole story.  ³⁴ Jesus said to her, “Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed! Be healed of your plague.”

Mark 5:25-33 (MSG)

This is such a powerful scripture for so many reasons and I’ve often heard it used when someone is preaching on, the faith of the woman who touched Jesus’ robe, however for this point, I want to draw attention to the highlighted portion, when Jesus felt the energy leave him when the woman touched him…

After Jesus says “who touched my robe?”  The disciples almost scoff at his remark saying Uh, what do you mean pal, there are tons of people touching you!  But the disciples didn’t understand what Jesus was saying, there were dozens of people pushing, pulling, grabbing and reaching out to Jesus so it wasn’t an issue of someone merely touching him, He’d felt energy leaving from Him, or the New King James version says “And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him…” 

Eventually the woman confessed the story to Him and He commended her for her faith and sent her off to live a blessed life, which is amazing in and of itself, But why do you think Jesus was able to feel the power leaving Him?  What was the power that was leaving Him?  And how did this power leave Him?

• The gift was healing, and it’s power was a gift to be given away, and only when it was given away by faith did He feel it leave his very being.  The power was faith, was in Him by faith and left Him by faith.
• This healing could not have affected this woman, for one if she didn’t have the faith to receive it, but also if Jesus didn’t intend on freely giving it away in faith to the woman.

Jesus walked this earth and freely gave away all that he had, there wasn’t one need He wasn’t ready and willing to fill.  He had a passion that caused the gifts that were in Him to actively seek out the faith in a person whom would be willing to receive what He was giving.  It would be as an analogy of His hands being on fire and He was constantly searching for an ice bath to submerge them in to cool them off!

Whatever your gifts are, did you know they are meant to be given away?  Even further than that, they are meant to be given away in faith, faith that whom ever they reach that it will impact and change lives for the better.  Only when we give our talents and gifts away, will we see the gift become even stronger than before.

How often do we do things out of obligation and not passion?  How often do we turn away the needs of others because we “don’t have time” or capacity to deal with it because our busy lives have taken up too much of our thoughts, money, time and energy?

How often do you truly open your eyes on the journey of life and look around you to breathe in your surroundings and ask yourself what you have to give and how you can effectively give it away?

If you are a parent or a grandparent you probably understand that our children/grandchildren should be our number one mission field, yet how often are we just too tired to deal with them, and fill their ever nagging needs or take the time to communicate properly with them, teach them, spend time with them, laugh with them, understand them, all because we pour ourselves into so many other empty things day to day?  This may be offensive, but even those “spiritual” or “worthy causes” and things we tangle ourselves up in are not always a positive thing, if they are getting more attention than God, our spouse or our kids and making us crabby, ugly or distant from those most important in our lives.  – Oh yes I did just go there!

I pray that you will be sparked to ask those questions in your soul and that just as I’ve been spurred on, that you will begin to seek after a heart that gives away the gifts inside of you, so passionately and deeply that you feel the power leaving the depths of your spirit to reach and fill a need somewhere to someone so much so that you have to say “Who touched my robe?”

Be blessed, favored and highly annointed for the ministry of life,

Rheanna

Suggested Reading:

Beyond Talent – John Maxwell

The Minister’s Life of Obedience – Windgate