RebornSample

Reborn

DAY 5 OF 7

Reaching Out to Jesus

God is still healing people. His power hasn’t waned or weakened over the years. And while I have no idea exactly how prayer works, I do know this: prayer only works if we actually pray. And the reason prayer works is because God works. While we’re praying, God is always working, even when we don’t see it.

Mark 5 tells us how Jesus once faced three crises in a row: a man possessed by demons, a father with a dying daughter, and a woman who couldn’t stop bleeding. The first was a man screaming all night long as he cut himself with stones, possessed by demons. With inhuman strength, he tore through every shackle placed on him. But when he encountered Jesus, he was changed. 

One moment this man was completely unhinged. The next he was sitting at the feet of Jesus, dressed and in his right mind for the first time anyone could remember (Mark 5:15).

As soon as Jesus and his followers got off the boat, Jairus, the local synagogue leader, met Him on the shore. His twelve-year-old daughter was on the brink of death. But before Jesus and His followers could get to Jairus’s house, they encountered the third person needing a miracle.

“And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years” (Mark 5:25). Consider this: she woke up every single morning for over four thousand days, praying for God to heal her. Whatever the cause, she was hurting, cast off by the people around her, and desperate for a miracle.

Mark 5:27–29 tells us that the women knew she would be healed if she could simply touch Jesus’s garment: “Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from Him.”

A simple touch from Jesus has an immediate impact on us. 

Rather than rebuking her, Jesus looked tenderly at the trembling woman who had just bared her soul to Him and replied, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering” (Mark 5:34). She was reborn with a new identity.

He left this scene and went to Jairus’s home. The people were mourning because his daughter had died while Jesus was delayed. But as He was known to do, Jesus messed up their mourning—and raised her from the dead.

Know this: Jesus will fight through anything to get to you. Jesus changes everything. Don’t give up now.

What touch from Jesus do you need today? Ask Him for it.  

Scripture

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About this Plan

Reborn

Our self-help, DIY culture naturally loves the idea of improvement, but it’s never-quite-enough. That's because we don’t need a renovation; we need a rebirth—an upending of our lives—and that’s something we can’t do ourselves. If you're tired of going through religious motions in your own power and long to experience the heart and life change Jesus promised, it's time to encounter Jesus. It's time to be reborn.

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