Mon.’s Devo - The Withered Hand

Read Luke 6:6-11 I often wondered why Jesus seemed to always be healing people on the sabbath, but I realize that he healed on other days too, but on the sabbath, the Pharasees and Saducees were present and he was in the synagogue. This put him on display under their “laws”. Today we find Jesus at the synagogue on the sabbath and a man with a withered hand walks up to be healed. It is a test to see if Jesus will heal on the sabbath which they deemed as “work”. Jesus knew what they were thinking and told the man with the withered hand to rise up and stand in the middle so all could see. Then he asked the crowd this question, “Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? To save life, or to destroy it?” He looked around to give any of them a chance to answer. When no one would take his challenge, he told the man to stretch out his hand and it was restored, right before everyone. The law keepers were enraged with envy and indignation. How dare Jesus defy them in such a powerful way! They started plotting how they could shut down his ministry. I have seen this play out in our world so many times. God will anoint a person with a gift of healing or prophecy and the Christian media will do everything they can to ruin their reputation. So will the devil. It is ashamed that we can’t look at each other as our brothers and sisters. We will never all agree but we can still be unified under what we have in common which is Jesus. How about us? Is there someone we have trouble liking? Maybe it is because we are jealous of their gifts. We are all given gifts to edify one another, so instead of being jealous of their gift, we might want to try being blessed by it. Lord, help us to enjoy what you are doing in others and grow in our own gifts that we might bless others with them.