I'm learning and re-learning so much lately about myself, about my faith, about my life. Its mainly re-learning I'm afraid. Its wonderful. I feel a boldness to carry it over to work, but I have some habits (bad ones) to overcome. I just wrote my review of Acts 2 which I like and decided to go back to this entry which hadn't been posted yet. Its neat how it fits into what I currently am thinking and feeling.

Matthew 8 This chapter has so much in it. First is the leper coming to Christ asking to be healed. He tells Jesus He can heal him if He wants too to which Jesus replied He did want to and was then healed. Jesus told him not to tell anyone but rather to show the priest as commanded by the law and offer the appropriate sacrifice. In one version of the Bible I'm reading it implies that Jesus instructed the man to live as commanded rather than by telling people that Jesus healed him. I wondered why but after some self reflection I have to admit I believe miracles I see more so than those I hear about. I think sales people are the primary reason. As I get older I believe less the words I hear versus the actions I see. Any time you talk to sales people you hear how great the product is, and how crappy what you have is and that you need to "buy now". We're inundated with commercials to that effect. So Jesus instruction to obey the law and live the faith versus proclaiming it is understandable. We don't want to sell Christ to people, He ran people out of the temple saying it was a place to worship rather than a market place. He wants us to live for Him and show others His grace working in us rather than us saying the right things.
In chapter eight is also a recording of people bringing others to Christ who were demon possessed and sick. He healed them all. The interesting thing about that is that others brought the sick and possessed to Jesus. Certainly people who feel God's call on their lives need to confess their sins and accept Christ, but some alter calls maybe should be bringing a need of someone else to the alter. Whether you bring the person or not the need is important. Care must be taken not to bring the one with a speck in their eye while the bringer has a beam, but praying for others has always helped me keep proper perspective and helped to fight off any depression that could creep in due to focusing on the things in my life that aren't going the way I think they should.
The third story I want to mention is the scribe telling Jesus "I'll follow You wherever You go" Jesus gives him a warning that Jesus doesn't have a place to lay his head. That struck me most recently that Jesus was pointing out to the scribe that he should count the costs of following Jesus, or maybe had not counted those costs but rather said what he thought the Teacher wanted to hear. The next one is the man wanting to go bury his father prior to following Christ. Why didn't he ask Christ to heal his father, or resurrect him? It strikes me as someone who wants to follow Christ but also has his/her own agenda of how following Christ should go and someone not willing to put Him first. I personally struggle with that also in some areas, and I certainly see people who seemingly live that way.
Lastly is Jesus visit to the country of the Gadarenes. That story has spoken to me every time I read it. Jesus goes to this country and heals two men that others have ostracized from their community. He wasn't invited or asked, He just appeared and helped people. People that others had given up on, and arranged their lives around avoiding. Which of our neighbors do we avoid because their plight is too great a task (seemingly) for us? Jesus heals these men and the demons that possessed them are cast into pigs which then drown. The herd of pigs represented wealth people weren't willing to lose, wealth to give members of their community freedom or a better life. So much so they asked Jesus to leave and He did. So seemingly helping people which should be widely accepted as a good thing, often won't be- you'll be seen as a troublemaker. At a recent globalization conference one of the facts stated a couple times was that 70% of the world is still at or below poverty. If you think about that driving down the interstate and enough SUVs pass you clearly exceeding the speed limit (which wastes resources in favor of supposed time savings) then I wonder if this nation is the Gadarenes. Actually I think most nations fit in that category.