Apr 30, 2007 - Look close

Apr 30, 2007

Mar 5:22 KJV
(22) And, behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet,

I have a program that when it starts will throw out a random verse from the Bible. I will often try to meditate on that scripture a little bit to see what God will say to me through it. Of course the 'so and sobegat so and so' verses are a little hard to hang any thing on. And often I will have to stop and look at the verse in context to see what is going on. Then, there are the ones that are so familiar to use that we do not even look at the surrounding verses. I know the story so well I do not even have to really meditate on it, I know what it means. Or do I?

If you are like me you have read this verse a lot. And besides that you probably have had it preached to you from the pulpit a lot also. The story that follows we know so well. Jairus asks for his daughter to be healed, Jesus goes, the woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus, they have a healing testimony andJairus gets word his daughter is dead. Jesus says just believe, Jairus keeps his mouth shut, and the girl is healed. There is a lot that happens in the rest of the verses, so we often do not even look at this one. It says a lot.

Jairus was a ruler of the synagogue. He was a religious leader. These were the ones that were against Jesus. Lesson number 1: all those that are part of a group are not against you.

Jairus knew Jesus. The verse says "when he saw Him...". Jairus had to have followed Jesus, at least from a far distance. He was familiar with what Jesus could do. He knew Him well enough that he went looking for Jesus when his daughter needed help. Lesson number 2: People watch you. They will come to you when they need help.

Jairus knew where the source of power was. As leader of the synagogue he had people worshiping him. For him to worship someone else, they would have to be a greater authority. As a street preacher, Jesus would not have been such. Jairus saw much more inside Jesus and knew where He came from. Lesson number 3: Walk in the power and people will see the authority.

I have never heard anyone preach on those things, nor have I ever thought of them myself when rushing through that scripture to get to the meat of the story. Every verse in the Bible is put there for a reason. Take some time today to read one and figure out why.