Virtue's Touch

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Treasure Box: Mark 5:24-34 (King James Version)

A woman touches Jesus. Desperate for healing, her life literally bleeding away, abused by many false deliverers, she wonders, she steps, she dares, she reaches...and touches Jesus' garment, hoping to go unnoticed in the swirling crowd. In an instant, she went from bleeding blood, from hope bleeding away...to receiving wholeness and healing. And then...the spotlight, as Jesus asks her to take one more step of faith by asking her to answer, "Who touched me?" Letting her decide: Will she come to Him as well as seek His power to solve her problem? Will she come and "touch" Him by sharing her story, opening her heart's door, withholding nothing? He asked in a way that allowed her the choice to remain anonymous, unknown in the crowd, to continue her social invisibility as an outcast, assumed to be cursed of God because of her plague. But she is compelled, trembling, to come forward and know an even greater healing: the revelation He gives her that it was her faith, her faith in Him, that opened the door to her healing and that now, she can not only know deliverance, but know peace. For now, she has known Peace. Peace, what we crave beyond health, is a Person. "Go in peace and be whole..."

The King James Version gives us an especially enlightening insight in verses 30 and 31:

And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned about in the press [crowd] and said, "Who touched my clothes?...Who touched me?"

"Virtue" is a translation of the Greek word dunamis, the meaning of which includes strength, power, ability, inherent power, miracle-working power, and moral excellence of the soul (virtue). As disciples of Jesus, the Holy Spirit desires to grow purity and moral excellence of the soul within us that brings healing and deliverance to the lives we touch (and to our own). As He purifies us in holiness, we can be channels of Christ's dunamis...His hands reaching out, His ears truly listening, His feet walking alongside, His presence comforting, His knees bending to serve. And see the healing work of God before our eyes. Purity of the soul brings healing. What an awesome thought as we pursue holiness, setting aside every dead-weight distraction of our daily lives and fixing our eyes upon Jesus, to please Him and be like Him more and more each day.

To become a woman of virtue, of dounamis virtue, for this I ask, Lord Christ. As I seek to rely upon Your grace to be the woman You call me to be, bend and break, convict and create, keep me hungering and thirsting for righteousness that Your healing and deliverance may once again visit this earth.

Holiness
by Wayne Watson
From the Album Giants In The Land

Consume me
Resume Your rule of me
I've made a fool of me for so long

Rebuild me
Ablaze with holy fire
Be my one desire
Be my song

Sailing this unrighteous sea
All my hope is in You
Bright Morning Star
High King of Heaven

refrain:
Holiness, holiness
Oh, how my heart beats for Thee
Holiness, holiness
I want a heart that's promised to be
Consigned to purity

Control me
Console me when I fall
Lord, after all
I am but dust

Receive me
Retrieve these wandering hands
That I may stand
Before You just

Lord, be my vision
And my light
To illumine my way
Strength to the weak
Help of the helpless

refrain:
Holiness, holiness
Oh, how my heart beats for Thee
Holiness, holiness
I want a heart that's promised to be
Consigned to purity