Jesus doesn’t wait until we’re clean to reach out to us.

And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and *said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. (Mark 1:40-42)

We don’t have to wait until we’re clean to reach out to Jesus.

A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse—after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she thought, “If I just touch His garments, I will get well.” Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. (Mark 5:25-29)

Touching or being touched by either of these people was unheard of. When unclean came in contact with clean, the clean became unclean. Unclean overpowered clean…until Jesus. His cleanness cancels out the unclean.

We can do the same in Jesus’ name. We have power, but it’s only because of God.

We don’t have the power to heal in and of ourselves. We powerfully impact each other’s spiritual lives only because of who God is, how completely we yield to Him, and how He chooses to work through us.

First, we impact each other’s spiritual lives because of who God is. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 reminds us to encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. Encouraging and building up others is healing because it’s restoring. Restoration grows us into who God plans for us to become. God is the source of restoration, redemption, and encouragement. Only He supplies it to and through us, because it is who He is.

Next, we must yield to God in order to let Him use us in one another’s lives. Earthly encouragement doesn’t have God’s power infused into it; only when we yield to His will and way do we become vessels through which He powerfully works through us and in others. Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work. (2 Timothy 2:19-20)

Finally, God gets to decide how and when to work through us. Just because we want something doesn’t make it His will. He never contradicts Himself, so what He says through one avenue will always line up with the truth of every other avenue through which He speaks. He speaks through His Word: All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17) He speaks through the Holy Spirit: For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. (Matthew 10:20) He speaks through His creation: For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

Our hands might be dirty, but God has the power to cleanse us to not only right us with Him but to be used by Him. But do we always use the power of Jesus in the way we should? We’ll explore the answer to that question in tomorrow’s post.