IF ONLY I COULD JUST TOUCH HIS CLOTHES!
Hi Children!
There is a wonderful story in the Bible which tells of a woman who had been very sick for 12 years. Yes 12 years! Can you imagine being ill for so long? I can’t. She had been to so many doctors for help, but sadly none of them could heal her.
What made things worse was that she had no money left to pay for anymore visits to the Doctor.
Then one day she heard that Jesus was passing through her village and she said to herself:
If only I could see Him. If only I could just touch His clothes, I would be healed.
She made up her mind to go to where Jesus was, so she got dressed and joined the crowd, but found that it was almost impossible to get close enough because of all the people who were following Jesus.
But she was determined to touch Him, so she pressed forward and just managed to touch His clothes by stretching her hand forward between the crowds.
Then an amazing thing happened! As she touched His clothes, she was healed! Her sickness left her immediately. The Bible tells us that Jesus knew He had been touched and turned around and asked:
Who touched me?
The disciples were astonished that Jesus would ask such a question because there were so many people crowded around Jesus that any number of people could have touched Him.
But Jesus knew that there was something special about the person who had just touched His clothes, and asked who it was.
When the woman heard Jesus ask this question, she was afraid and fell down on her knees and told Him it was her.
Jesus then said to her:
Your faith has healed you.
Go in peace.
You are healed.
Isn’t that an amazing story?
Remember children, all these stories in the Bible are there to teach us what we must do if we are to put our trust in Jesus.
What this woman did, we must do if we are to invite Jesus into our lives.
She knew that if she came to Jesus, He would heal her, so should we.
We may not be very ill, but we do have sins that separate us from Jesus and we need to ask forgiveness for them and invite Jesus into our lives.
We need to live for Jesus day after day and we do this by inviting Him into our lives and asking Him to live with us.
We need to get to know Jesus, and we do this by reading the Bible every day and praying for help in understanding what we read.
We need to understand that no-one else can do this for us.
Just like the woman who got up and went to Jesus in faith, believing that He would heal her, we must do the same.
Jesus tells us to:
Come to Him and He will heal us and He will make us whole.
Jesus loves us and wants us to love Him!
We can only be a whole person if we love Jesus, because without Him we are empty.
If you would like to read this story for yourself, open your Bible to the Gospel of Mark Chapter 5 and read from verse 25 to verse 34.
If you don’t understand something, ask your Mother and Father to help you.