Dirty to Daughter
My dad loves to grow hot chili peppers and jar them for the winter. If you’ve ever worked with hot peppers before you understand how important it is to use gloves. The oils from the peppers seep deeply into the skin and can cause burning and tingling. Yes, I am telling you from a bitter experience. Once you have these oils on your hands everything you touch becomes subject to its potency.
It can be the same with our mistakes. If we don’t know how to walk forgiven and in freedom we can continue to allow it to taint every goal and dream for our lives. It’s that one moment that should have cancelled our call, stopped the gift or removed the position but thank God for Jesus! I’m not talking about living in B.C. (before Christ) but while you have lived this Christian life. I look back at times when I taught things out of ignorance, when I gave up on the inside and made horrible decisions or when I was full of anger and strife all the while attending church every Sunday. I had to learn to clean up and continue learning even when everyone was watching. Don’t ever assume a person should be beyond sin. No one is ever too holy, too godly or too Christian to not make a mistake or sin. We are only too empowered to live in it. We sometimes only see what others want us to see and may not know the hidden struggles of people that we see every Sunday. When a person can’t tell a trusted person their weakness or themselves then they too have only blinded or chained themselves to it. Part of conquering sin is confronting sin. Every person should be able to identify their own strength and weakness in order to conquer what needs to be confronted in their life.
We can not allow these moments of failure, set back or sin to seep so deeply that we live a limited life with a limited view of our future.
The Woman with the issue of blood takes us on a journey from Dirty to Daughter.
And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” (Mark 5:24-34 ESV)
The only thing standing between her and Jesus, were people.
Are your decisions are based on People or Purpose?
Is it because of where God is taking you or because you don’t want others to think less of you?
Religion serves to please people, Purpose serves to please God.
The People who stand in between:
The people who think you don’t deserve the call or position.
The people who don’t mind pushing you down so they can rise.
The people who only see your issue not your call.
The people who gave up on you along the way.
She was a woman who understood disconnection and loss. By law she was to stay separated from people and considered unclean (Leviticus 15:25). She was defined by her issue. Have you ever been defined by your issue? Jesus took away that label on the cross and we need to leave it there. There is not one issue in your life that you are not empowered to loosen from your life.
When Faith is the connection to reaching Jesus
In one moment of faith she went from dirty to daughter. She had only “heard” of Jesus and believed even before He arrived. She knew she could trust Him to heal if she could just touch Him. Jesus had never called a woman daughter anywhere else in the bible but here. He chooses the woman who was an outcast, who was separated and unclean. Reminding us that there is no sin or failure that can keep us from reaching out to Christ in faith and Him not respond.
Understand her life was at risk. It was not legally allowed for an unclean woman to touch anyone especially Jesus. She had to have touched many others in her quest to touch Jesus. The law says that anyone who touches an unclean woman is now considered unclean. Thank God, you are never too dirty to become His daughter. There is nothing too dirty that God can’t wash away completely.
This story is a reminder of His great compassion to stop, listen and respond to our hearts. He responds to faith not our issue. So instead of telling Him your issue, which He already knows, reach out to Him in faith. Take what He has made available to you which is freedom. He is waiting for someone to reach out to Him and know that He is the only answer.
Because of her faith she went from Dirty to Daughter. It’s what you believe about yourself as to how you think God views you. The freedom is in your faith! Jesus has already conquered the issue in your life.
You are a Daughter or Son not the issue, not the struggle and not the label. Reach out to Him in faith and He will respond with freedom and wholeness.
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