May 23, 2022 WWJWMTD by Steve, the son of John
Will you be lucky and hungry, today?
Is today your lucky day? Will you be approached by God? Scripture says, “Today is the day” (Psalms 118:24) and “Will you hear the voice of the Lord today?” (Hebrews 3:7). The questions are, “Are you listening?” and “To whom are you listening too?” God never, and I must say ‘never’ again, speaks without some degree of conviction, judgment, and urgency. You and I are expected to listen to God every day and how God answers you is how you initially respond to him. The best example of hearing and responding to God (this is faith in action) is found in this story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman.
Matthew 15:21-28 KJV/SJWR: “Then Jesus went thence and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. A woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, ‘Send her away; for she is yelling at us’. But he answered and said,’ I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel’. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, ‘Lord, help me’. But he answered and said, ‘It is not good or correct to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs’ and she said, ‘Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table’. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, ‘O woman, great is thy faith, may it happen to you even as you have chosen and spoken’. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”
Why did Jesus respond to the Canaanite woman after He rejects her, humiliates her, and says ‘I cannot help you’? What did this Canaanite do to make Jesus change His mind and respond to her request? The Bible states clearly what she did to change Jesus’s reaction to her. Here is her behavior—her faith in action:
She called Jesus ‘Lord, son of King David’.
She was asking for mercy and said what was wrong with her daughter.
She kept ‘crying out’ with a loud voice—making a scene of herself and did not care what others thought of her or said to her.
When allowed to approach Jesus, she worshipped Him and said, “Lord, help me!”
She only humbled herself and never tried to justify her position but accepted Jesus’s opinion of her.
She accepted her circumstances and relied on the words of Christ… she said, ‘Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table’.
Jesus had an answer for her, “O woman, great is your faith!”
If only we had such faith and would debate with God. The one and only ingredient for GREAT FAITH is humility, unworthiness, worship, brokenness, and never giving up. We must accept that we are never good enough or worthy enough to receive a miracle, but all things depend on Jesus and all things are for His Glory alone. This is faith and it is measured by our response to who God is and what He says, which is embedded in humility alone and always measured by our hunger for the things of God.
WWJWMTD
What would Jesus want me to do?
Dr. Steven J. Wentland www.wwjwmtd.com
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