Who Touched Me?

Have you ever been in a large crowd of people? I’m taking about shoulder to shoulder crowd, trying to move from one place to the next.

If you have then you’ve experienced multiple people touching you and you touching multiple people too. It can be an awkward experience as you’re up against people that you don’t know trying to get to a destination. Yeah, if you’ve been in this spot, you know how fun this is.

But this same scenario happened to Jesus too.

Who touched me? This is what Jesus asked when he was in the middle of a big crowd with multiple people touching him at one time. What’s interesting is that, he asked this question signifying that truly only one person touched him in that moment.

But how is that true?

After all, he had to have felt all the people touching him in that moment and yet one person touched him and received something from him. This is a big point for us. When we touch Jesus, we receive a touch from him. This is what made this one touch different from all the rest in the story. It was a lady who touched him and from that act of faith, Jesus touched her back.

This is fascinating because not every touch receives something from him. He’s looking for a touch that pulls on him to move and when that happens, something takes place.

You see, this lady believed that when she touched him she would receive from him. This speaks to expectation and expectation is the breeding ground of miracles. When our expectation is alive, it speaks to our faith being alive too. When your expectation is low or nonexistent, it speaks to disappointment, frustration and a lack of hope.

Many Christ followers have low expectation because of what has happened or maybe what hasn’t happened for them. From this position, we navigate a plethora of feelings that can slowly erode expectation down to nothing. So that when we try to touch him, it doesn’t connect to him.

However, we know that all of us will face a variety of things in our lives, and so we must protect our expectation so that when we reach to touch him, it’s with living faith.

This story is found in Luke 8:43-46.

“A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. Immediately, the bleeding stopped. ‘Who touched me?’ Jesus asked. Everyone denied it, and Peter said, ‘Master, this whole crowd is pressing up against you.’ But Jesus said, ‘Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.'”

Luke 8:43-46

Notice Jesus said, “Someone deliberately touched me.” This speaks to her expectation of a deliberate act of faith believing that something would happen when she touched him.

We also know, she said “If I can touch him, I will he made whole.”

So, in herself she had a living faith in her act of touching Jesus physically. This is a big deal for you and for me because what we tell ourselves can determine what we expect in our faith toward God.

The average person has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts a day. 80% of those thoughts are negative and 95% of them are repetitive. This means that our expectation in Jesus can be attacked with wrong thoughts on a daily basis and if we’re honest, we all face this.

But, there is good news.

We can speak to ourselves the word of God and drown out wrong thoughts so that our faith thrives and grows to receive from him. This woman told herself, “if I can touch him, I am going to be healed.”

So, what if we did the same? It would sound like this.

“When I pray today, I’m going to receive an answer. When I worship him, I’m going to be at peace. When I go to church today, something good is going to happen to me. When I give my finances to God today, something is coming back to me. When I do what’s right and love people, God is going to make a way for me.”

This is how we have to talk to ourselves because if we don’t, we will listen to ourselves and be talked out of a potential blessing and miracle from God. The truth is, we can’t trust our thoughts but we can trust his word; therefore, when I speak to myself what the Bible says, my expectation can thrive!

So, I encourage you today, speak to yourself what the Bible says and feed your expectation to come alive. Choose to deliberately touch Jesus today with your faith. Reach out and touch him by praying, worshiping, obeying, being a part of a local church, giving, loving and more. Every act of effort in faith, touches God and moves heaven toward you. This is what this lady did and this is what we can do too.

How is your expectation today? What are you telling yourself?

If you feel like you’re in a battle to believe God can, be encouraged, he is with you. He doesn’t reject you and he’s not ignoring you, but rather he’s reaching for you with love and grace. Reach back in faith and touch him. He’s not looking for a perfect touch he’s looking for a deliberate touch and you can do it.

No matter what you’re facing today, Jesus can do something about it. Therefore, I want to touch him so deliberately that he turns and says, “Who touched me?”

God is with you and you’re in the middle of a miracle!

Have a great week and the best is yet to come.

PD