God Promises to Reward Faith

Mark 5:25-29, 34 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering…34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
 
JESUS told the woman, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.”. In the previous lesson, Jesus saw the faith of the crippled man and his friends to come to him against great odds. He forgave the man’s sins and healed the man’s body. Is faith the healing agent? How much faith do we need?
   Jesus taught that a very small faith will do great things. When his disciples could not heal a young man with epilepsy, he exhorted them: “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20) The Lord urged his disciples to spiritually hold on to him. He wanted them to exhibit the same faith as the woman who had grasped his cloak and the crippled man who had pursued him through a thick roof.
   Both the woman and the man had enough faith to know to go to Jesus, to trust  his power that he would move the mountains from their lives and into the “sea” – a metaphor for the place of destruction. Three times in the gospels Jesus admonishes the disciples, “You of little faith.” He wanted to draw them from a self-view of their own abilities, so they could set their eyes on him and await his response. Because faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1), we cannot hope to see God touch our lives if we do not seek to touch him.