David Yarbrough
Psalm 34:17–18 (CSB)
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles.
The Lord is near the brokenhearted; he saves those crushed in spirit.
In Matthew 15, Jesus unleashes on the Pharisees and scribes when He says, Matthew 15:7–9 (CSB), “Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said, This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands.” Jesus uses some strong words when He says, “They worship me in vain.” I wonder how many times we've done that. We get close to God’s presence, but spiritually, we’re far from His transforming power.
This brings to mind the story of the woman with an issue of blood in Mark 5:21–29. Here we find Jesus amidst a large crowd, everyone bumping up against Him, pushing and shoving, trying to get close to Him. Within the crowd, there is a woman with an incurable bleeding condition. She pressed her way through the crowd and reached out in faith, merely touching Jesus' tassels hanging from the corner of his prayer shawl (Mal 4:2). Instantaneously, she experienced healing. When this happens, Jesus stops and asks an interesting question, as we read in Mark 5:30 (CSB), “Immediately Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’” Then, to paraphrase the disciples, they were like, “Everyone is touching you; the better questions would be: Who didn’t touch you?”
This illustrates a powerful point: we can be close to Jesus, even seeking Him, but yet be far from His transforming power. It's obvious that the crowd that was pressing against Jesus wanted to be close to Him. They wanted to be close so they could see a miracle, not because they wanted transformation. They were seeking Jesus as a sideshow. They wanted to see something miraculous, to be thrilled by seeing Jesus do something without investing any part of their hearts. The woman with the issue of blood was very different from everyone else in the crowd. She was desperate, and she had spent everything she had on doctors, but instead of getting better, she only got worse. She wasn't interested in seeing a miracle; she was desperately reaching out to Jesus to save her life.
If you've ever found yourself in a life-or-death situation and the only hope you had was God intervening, then you know how it affects your prayer life. You don't merely go through the motions of your prayers; there's a deep sense of desperation in the way you reach out to Jesus for help.
Do you know why we struggle to maintain that passion and intensity in our prayer lives?
It's because in our day-to-day lives, we don't realize our deep need for God's presence and transforming power in every aspect of everything we experience.
We think we're stronger than we really are; we live in a facade of thinking that we are in control, the masters of our own ship, and that if we just believe and think the right things, then we will have our desired outcome. This type of thinking permeates our consumer driven, self-help, live your best life now form of American Christianity. One of the primary problems with this kind of thinking is that we become our own gods. It boosts our pride, our egos, and our self-sufficiency by making us think we are in control, and if we do everything right, everything will turn out according to what we think is right.
When we fall into the trap of this line of thinking, it's easy to find ourselves in the crowd pressing against everyone else in religious activity, seeking God for His miracles, wanting to see the religious show, or the next cool thing in our pop-Christian culture.
As you read this today, I encourage you to pray for the Holy Spirit to search your heart. Are you just going through the motions today? Have you merely desired to be in His presence without experiencing His power? Is your form of Christianity leaving you empty, disillusioned, and wondering what's wrong? If so, it may just be that you're approaching Jesus from the wrong direction, and in your approach, you're lacking the key element—desperation.
Psalm 63:1 (CSB)
God, you are my God; I eagerly seek you. I thirst for you; my body faints for you in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water.