Miracles of Jesus – The God Who Notices

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

We are in part three today of a series that we're wrapping up.

Series called The Miracles of Jesus.

If you were to read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four authors record 37 unique miracles in Jesus' life.

He was the greatest, most influential person to ever walk the face of the earth.

And each one of these stories was a story of a miracle he did that helped someone in a moment of crisis.

But in each miracle, in my opinion, comes a lesson that I believe can forever affect our lives.

Now, one of the things we've said, and I want to make sure you know, is that the four gospels are literally a snapshot of Jesus' life.

At the end of John chapter 20, John notes that if all the miracles of Jesus and all the stories of Jesus were to be written down, there wouldn't be enough room in the world to hold all the documentation of his miracles.

John 20 · chapter mention

So we have these snapshots of his life.

Each one has something so unique and special for us today.

I want to take you to Luke's account.

If you're new to the Bible, Luke was a medical doctor.

He was a physician, and I love how he writes because he writes like a doctor.

He gives unique details in the story.

This story is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

We'll look at Luke's recount.

Luke chapter 5, here's what it says.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

It says, while Jesus was in one of the towns, and we know from the book of Matthew's account that this town wasn't just any town, that this was Capernaum.

Capernaum was Jesus' hometown.

It was a place where Jesus loved to go.

Don't you love coming home?

Don't you love after a hard day?

Don't you love after a difficult day of classes or a difficult day of work?

Don't you love the feeling of walking into your house and exhaling?

Don't you love the feel of your bed and your couch?

And let's be honest, don't you love your bathroom, everybody?

Like you just love your house.

You do.

And he's home, but he's gonna get inconvenienced.

It says, while he was home, a man came along who was covered, we'll come back to that in a moment, covered with leprosy.

And when he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and he begged him.

And I want you to see his request.

He says, Lord, if huge conjunction, if you are willing.

Like if it's okay with you, if you are willing, you can make me clean.

And Jesus reached out his hand and he touched the man.

He said, I am willing.

I'm willing to do this for you.

He said, Be clean.

And immediately the leprosy left him.

Then Jesus ordered him something weird.

He said, Don't tell anybody, but go show yourself to the priests and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing as a testimony to them.

It says, Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and be healed of their sicknesses.

And here's a good leadership lesson for those of you who lead lots of people.

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and he prayed.

That when everything got busy, awesome, and hectic, he knew that the more that was required of him, the more that was required of him to retreat away and to be recharged in the presence of God.

Here's what I want you to understand.

Jesus does this miracle when he meets a man covered in leprosy.

All the parents in the room, I don't know if you've had this experience before with your kids, but if your kids ever noticed something about you that you didn't really notice about yourself and it just annoyed you, anybody have this example?

Like when my son Joey turned 16, he started driving and he's an awesome driver.

But he he started noticing the rules a little closer.

Before he was 15 or 16, he didn't care how fast I was going, but then he turned 15 and all of a sudden he's like, Dad, why are you going three miles over the speed limit?

Like, why are you talking?

I made you, I'll take you out of this world.

I don't care.

Like that they call you on your stuff and you don't even notice it.

Well, a few months ago, my kids called me on something and I didn't like it, to be honest.

I didn't feel comfortable with this.

I was upset at them for even noticing this.

But they said, Dad, you are the most relaxed, chill person ever until a fast food worker inconveniences you.

Says, shut your mouth.

What are you talking about?

And they pointed out some examples of this to me.

All of them ticked me off worse than the one before.

But here was the worst one.

Some months ago, Popeye's chicken, and I love Popeye's chicken, everybody.

Um Popeye's chicken came out with this new macaroni and cheese.

It was Popeye's world famous macaroni and cheese.

My kids were so excited about this.

They saw it on commercials.

My kids, you know, they're kids, they believe anything people say, so they're like, it's world famous.

We gotta go.

I'm like, bro, it's not even Lakeland famous, but let's go, let's do it.

So we go to Popeye's and we get in line, and there's this cashier, and behind him is the marquee with all the different meals you can order.

So I go first.

I'll say, I'll take a number one with the side of mashed potatoes or whatever I ordered.

And up next comes my nine-year-old beautiful little daughter Ella, and she says, I'll take the world famous macaroni and cheese kids meal.

And this jerk had the audacity to look at my daughter and say, We don't have mac and cheese.

I said, I'm sorry, maybe you misheard her.

She'll have the world famous Popeye's macaroni and cheese.

And he goes, We don't have that.

I said, Yes, you do.

He goes, No, we don't.

And all I did was point at the sign behind him that five feet wide, in huge letters, said Popeye's.

World famous macaroni and cheese.

I pointed at it.

He turned around and looked.

Then he came back and he said, I guess we have it.

I said, You guess we have it.

You're paid to know that.

I pay you to know that.

I was so mad about this.

And my kids are like, Dad, you come unglued when you're inconvenienced.

Then I said, It is what it is.

I'm working through it with my therapist.

Now shut your mouth and eat your world famous macaroni and cheese, right?

I don't like to be inconvenienced, and there is this ugly side that comes out of me sometimes when I'm inconvenienced.

What happens to Jesus in the story when he's inconvenienced?

He's in his home, he's in his hometown, he's doing his thing, and all of a sudden he encounters a man who scripture illustratively says is covered with leprosy.

This is an important word because in Jesus' day there were two different things that people considered leprosy.

The first thing, you could read this in Leviticus chapter 14, was like any sort of skin abnormality.

Leviticus 14 · chapter mention

It could be a bad mole, it could be a rash, it could be some sort of skin tag, uh, it could be a sunburn.

A week and a half ago, my family went to the beach one day for spring break.

I'm gonna be honest, look at me.

This is not the skin tone for the beach.

I like the beach from a hotel room.

I like to look at it from a distance.

But we go to the beach and we went longer than I've ever been at the beach on a day, and I get in the car and I touch my skin and it hurts to touch it, and my skin was burned, my neck was burned, my arms were burned, but the worst part was the top of my feet.

Have you ever had a sunburn on the top of your feet?

It was bad.

It was red, it was nasty.

You want to see a picture of it?

Here's a picture.

No, not a picture of it.

I love you too much for that.

It was bad.

And people in those days might have considered that a form of leprosy, but there's no real inherent danger to a little rash or a little skin burn, or there's no real leprosy like that.

That's a big deal.

That's the first kind.

But it says that this man was covered in leprosy.

Leviticus 14 says there's another kind, and this is the scary kind.

It's what in modern medicine they'd call Hansen's disease.

It's called Mycobacterium leprae.

It's this terrible disease that starts as a little abnormality on your skin.

And it's not that big of a deal, but it spreads rapidly over your body.

And it eats away at your skin, it slowly eats away at the nerves, and eventually what it will do is it'll overtake your nervous system, causing you to be unable to feel correctly.

And over time, your extremities like fingers and toes will eventually die and fall off, and you are literally left to die.

A terrible, miserable, isolated kind of death.

Scripture says this man is covered in leprosy, and I want you to understand something about leprosy.

Because it was incurable and also because it was highly contagious.

If a person had leprosy, they had to do a few things.

The first thing is the most terrible.

They had to literally excommunicate themselves from their life, from their family, from their friends, from their job, from their kids.

Scripture taught in Leviticus 14 that a person had to keep at least six feet of distance between them and anyone else.

And if the wind happened to be blowing your direction, you had to leave 150 feet of distance between you and any person who didn't have leprosy.

You were excommunicated from everybody, and then to show people that you had leprosy, you had to do a few things.

You had to shave your head, you had to tear your clothes, and if anyone came near you from a distance, you had to yell at them, unclean, unclean, to let them know to steer clear of you.

So Jesus is at home, he's in his hometown, and all of a sudden he encounters a man who certainly inconvenienced him, and he doesn't say unclean, unclean, he says something else.

He says, Lord, if you are willing.

He has a problem that is so impossible.

It's so insurmountable that it was going to require a miracle.

And I want you to get this.

The prerequisite for a miracle is an impossible situation.

It's an impossible situation.

The truth is we overuse the word miracle.

We call little moments miracles that are not really miracles.

Like if it's Christmas time and you go to the mall and that perfect parking spot opens, we're like, oh, it's a it's a miracle, it's a miracle.

We go to Chick-fil-A and we order an eight-nugget meal and we open it and it's 10 nuggets.

We're like, oh, there is a God in heaven.

Checkmate atheist.

Like it's a miracle.

It's a miracle.

We get on I-4 to go to Disney World and it only takes us 40 minutes, and we're like, it's a that one might be a miracle, actually.

That might be one.

The real definition of a miracle, though, is a miracle is something that requires a divine intervention.

For this man, he's covered head to toe in an incurable disease that is so highly contagious, and he comes to Jesus saying, You're my only hope.

Now I need you to understand something.

Before this moment, the last miracle of a person being healed of leprosy that we have in scripture or history happened hundreds of years earlier in 2 Kings chapter 5, when Elisha prayed for Naaman, and Naaman is healed of leprosy.

2 Kings 5 · chapter mention

So for hundreds of years, people have believed that leprosy is entirely incurable.

He is the prime candidate for a miracle because he's so in desperate need of Jesus.

And instead of saying, unclean, unclean, he says, if you're willing.

Now, today I want to show you three things from the story that just jump out at me.

And I wrote these earlier this week, and then as I was driving to church this morning, I had this realization, these three things that Jesus did, they mirror something that we should do.

Like if we are going to be like Jesus, we need to do the things Jesus did.

So I want to show you some stuff from this story that just jumps out at me.

The first observation is this Jesus is a noticer.

I know this is gonna sound simple, shallow, and silly, but let me explain it.

To this man who was afflicted with leprosy, his whole life, he was used to people seeing him and turning away from him.

Come on, you ever been in a fight with somebody?

You ever had someone angry at you?

And you see them at target and they see you and they act like they didn't see you at all?

This was this man's normal life.

People would see him and turned a blind eye to him.

Why?

Because if they saw him, they'd have to interact with him.

They didn't want anything to do with that.

But if you trace the miracles of Jesus, every time Jesus does a miracle, it starts with them noticing that there's a problem.

Jesus' first miracle.

He's at a wedding in a city called Cana.

They run out of wine.

To us, that doesn't sound like a big deal, but in that culture, it would have been a massive oversight from the host of the party.

And Jesus does a miracle, he turns water into wine, and he saw that there was a problem, and he steps in and he meets it.

I think about John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

Jesus doesn't do a miracle at this moment, but he's on his way walking with his disciples and he separates from his disciples.

And the disciples go get something to eat, and Jesus keeps walking and he comes across a well, and there's a woman sitting there who's a Samaritan woman.

And Jesus talks to her.

Jesus was Jewish.

And when he talks to her, he he breaks two massive social norms.

Men shouldn't talk to women that they're not married to.

And secondly, a Jewish person would never ever associate with a Samaritan.

And he does both of those things when he talks to her.

Through a whole series of events, he reveals to her that he is the Son of God and He can give her a gift so much better than any drink of water that she can provide for him.

And at this time, the disciples come back and find Jesus talking to this woman that he noticed, the woman that he should have turned a blind eye to, but he's talking to her, and the disciples are like, Jesus, let's go get you something to eat.

Let's go get some McDonald's.

Ba-da-bop bop bop.

Come on, let's go.

And Jesus is like, guys, you're talking about food.

I'm talking about something eternal.

You're talking about something that will temporarily fill you.

I'm talking about something that will eternally satisfy her.

And then he says these words.

He says, Open your eyes.

You gotta see this.

You gotta see her.

Jesus sees the leper.

In fact, if I could zoom out a little bit, this is the beginning of Holy Week.

This is the Easter story.

Paul says it like this in 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

He says, God made him, Jesus, who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

God saw our need, he saw our depravity, he saw how far away from God we are.

And it's not enough to see something.

He saw something and he did something.

Okay, so so Jesus is a noticer.

So here's our part, ready?

If Jesus is a noticer, then we should be notices.

Why do we need to be notices of the world around us?

Ready?

We cannot reach what we cannot see.

So this week I was on Amazon doing my thing and I found this.

This is called a productivity supercharger.

It blocks out your peripheral vision so you can focus on only what's in front of you.

And I can't imagine that this would help me.

In fact, this kind of annoys me.

I can't imagine I'm getting more done with this.

But here's what happens: I can't see anything around me.

I wonder how many of us we live our lives not wearing this physically, but spiritually, we've got blinders on.

We're so focused on me, myself, and I.

We're spiritually nearsighted.

All we can see is right here, right in front of me.

As long as it's making me happy and keeping my bank account full, and as long as I'm healthy, and as long as my kids are fine, as long as my life is good, I'm good.

And I don't care about the world around me.

We live with what I would call unintentional, I can't even see it, unintentional.

Unintentional blindness.

What does this mean?

It means if a person doesn't think the way we think or vote the way we vote.

If a person doesn't look the way we look, if they don't have the same worldview as us, if a person has walked through some troubling situations, we can't see them.

So we hide from them, unintentionally blinding ourselves, and we miss the point altogether.

How can you reach the world for Jesus if you're blinded to them?

How do we do this?

Well, Andy Stanley, a pastor that I admire, he said something that was so powerful.

He said that you should pay attention to the relationships in your life and listen for three little knots.

These three little knots will tell you if a person is in need of God and if they're in need of church.

Here's the three knots.

If a person says to you, I'm I'm not in church.

If they say I'm life is not going well.

Or if they say something happened and I was not prepared for it.

I was not prepared for that betrayal.

I was not prepared for that divorce.

I was not prepared to lose that job.

It's not going well.

The diagnosis really didn't turn out the way we wanted it to.

It's not going well.

My kids are really far from God.

It's just not going well.

I'm not really in church in this season of my life.

When people say these things, they're literally waving a white flag saying, help, help, help.

And here's the funny thing.

I wonder how many conversations like this have happened in your world and in my world.

But we're blinded.

We can't see because all we're focused on is me, myself, and I.

My little personal sphere of influence.

If Jesus is a noticer, listen to me.

You need to be a noticer.

If Jesus is listening, your ears need to be attuned to the three little knots.

We have to listen and see the world around us to reach the world around us.

Jesus is a noticer.

Number two, I want you to understand this about Jesus is that Jesus is a reacher.

Scripture says this, that the man says to Jesus, if you are willing, and Jesus says, I am, and he does something that if there were a crowd of people around, the collective group would have gone, why?

Because in that world, you didn't touch a person afflicted with leprosy.

If you did, the belief was that the contagion on them would jump off of them and onto you.

But Jesus understood something.

He understood that if he touched this man, what was on him would jump off of him and get onto the man.

What was on Jesus?

Healing.

He touches the man and it says instantly, the leprosy is healed.

He's healed from head to toe.

Like, you ever slept awkwardly on your arm and you wake up and your hand is asleep?

You know that feeling of like pins and needles in your hand, and you like just try, you move it and you finally start to feel feeling come back into your hand?

Imagine years of not feeling your fingers.

Imagine years of having no sense of touch and instantly healing flowing through your body.

This is this man's story.

Jesus breaks the social norm and he touches someone who's really nothing like him so that a miracle can happen.

And then Jesus does something weird.

He heals the man.

And did you notice this detail in the story?

It says Jesus ordered him, hey, don't tell anybody.

Like, just keep this between you and me.

Why would Jesus do this?

Like, I don't do this.

Like, if my wife ever compliments me about anything, I'm like, tell somebody.

She's like, she's like, you look good.

Have you lost a couple pounds?

I don't know, but tell your friends.

Right?

So that was a great message today.

Ooh, tell your friends.

Tell somebody.

Like, why?

Because we like credit.

We like people knowing our best moments.

Why would Jesus say, don't tell anybody?

Well, here's one belief.

One belief is because there had been no healings of leprosy since Elisha.

Jesus knew that when he sent him to the priest, that this would serve as a business card.

This was like Jesus' LinkedIn, that the Son of God is here on earth and he has power over physical sickness.

That means he has power to heal and forgive.

So Jesus does this.

It's interesting.

The book of Mark, chapter 1, recounts this story, and Jesus tells him, Don't tell anybody, and guess what the man does?

Mark 1 · chapter mention

He told everybody, that's what he did.

But the second reason I think is also fascinating.

Why would Jesus say, Don't tell anyone?

I think it's it's this simple.

Jesus understood that if word got out that he had power to heal leprosy, what else could he do?

And Jesus understood that what would happen is people would confuse two things.

They would confuse the gifts and the giver of the gifts.

That people would seek Jesus just to see what they could get from him instead of getting him.

And this is a problem for a lot of us because if we could just be real, a lot of our relationships with God, they center around what he can offer and give us instead of just seeking the giver of the gifts in the first place.

Read through scripture.

There's a lot of stories of miracles.

Another word that's used in scripture for miracles is the word signs.

Signs should point you to something.

And the problem is we tend to confuse signs that point us to Jesus with something that we miss.

In fact, here I'll say it like this: Christians should not become obsessed with the signs, but with the one to whom they point.

Jesus understood that if we mess this up, people will pursue him for what they get out of him instead of pursuing him to just be with him.

So if Jesus is a reacher, ready for this?

We should be reachers.

What does this mean?

It means that we should be willing to do whatever it takes to reach the world around us.

It means that there is no gift you can give that is significant.

There is no amount of energy you can provide that matters more than what Jesus did for us.

And because He's healed us, because He's changed us, we shouldn't be afraid to reach out to people who don't look or think or believe or act or love like us.

People get all weird.

Like this social media world, if I could just step on some toes for a moment, has messed up so much of the Christian witness.

Say, what do you mean?

It's like the moment people don't think like you, act like you, vote like you, love like you, serve like you, give like you, live their life like you.

So many Christians get on and they blast people.

They miss it.

Those people that you are blasting are also people Jesus died for.

And if he already died for them, shouldn't you be willing to reach across whatever the aisle or the gap or the chasm is to reach them?

Oh, let's go.

Number three, Jesus.

Jesus, he was a noticer, he was a reacher.

But number three, I love this, it says Jesus is a healer.

And this is important because this moment starts with this moment of a conversation.

The man says to Jesus, he says, Lord, if you are willing.

Can you put the verse up for me?

He says, Lord, if you are willing, and then here's the next two words, he says, You can.

What is he saying?

He's saying, Jesus, I believe that you can heal me.

I believe that you can make me well.

But before he leads with the you can, he says, if you are willing.

He says, if you're willing, I wonder how many of us, when we pray for things, I wonder how many of us pray and we think to ourselves things like, Lord, you can do it.

I don't know if you will.

But I know you can.

Like you spoke to heaven.

And earth into existence.

Certainly, this problem is not too big for you.

But I don't I don't really think you I don't think you want to.

I don't think you're willing.

How does Jesus respond to this?

He says, I am willing.

Can I point out something for you in your circumstances and in your situation?

He can.

And he will.

He can.

What can he do?

Whatever you need.

He can fix whatever problem you're facing.

He can overcome the insurmountable problems you're facing.

That relationship problem, he can.

That financial problem, he can.

That sickness in your body, he can.

That wayward child, he can.

That relationship that seems to be on repair, he can.

The circumstance in your life that you can't fix with any amount of effort or amount of money in the bank, he can do it in a moment.

But I want you to see this.

It's and he will.

And here's why I want you to understand this.

Like, how can you say that with such authority when I pray and haven't heard a yes from God?

Can I show you how?

If you believe in the authority of Scripture, Hebrews 13, 8 is for you.

It says, Jesus Christ is the same.

Watch this, ready?

Yesterday and today.

And forever.

What do you mean?

It means that the Jesus who said yes to this man to heal him of his leprosy, he is a healer then.

Okay, ready?

And if he was the same then that he is now, that means he's a healer now.

And if he heals now, all the problems that are coming for you in your future, all the challenges that you worry about, all the concerns you have for your kids and the future of the world and what it looks like.

And he's already in tomorrow.

He's the same yesterday and today and forever.

I want you to get this.

Okay, so let's end with this.

If Jesus is healer, I want you to get this.

That means that we should be healers.

And that feels hard.

Like that's a that's a hard line to get your head around.

Let me explain what it means.

First of all, if you're fighting me and you're like, well, like how can I heal?

Like I have no supernatural power.

Jesus is the healer.

You're right.

The book of Romans, Paul says this.

It says, the same power that raised Christ from the dead is alive and living in you.

Okay, think about how much power it would take to raise someone from the dead.

And here's what Paul says when the Holy Spirit is alive and active in you, the same power that raised Christ from the dead is alive in you.

What does it mean?

It means every miracle Jesus did, you can see happen in your life.

Jesus Himself even said at the end of the book of John, he said this, he said, You've seen me do great things, but when the Holy Spirit is alive in you, you can do even greater than these.

Okay, so what does it mean?

It means that wherever you are, you're a carrier of the power of the Spirit of God.

That's what it means.

Okay, but let me offer you another thought that, in my opinion, on this Easter week might even matter possibly a little more.

Say every person you prayed for in your life was healed miraculously of their physical issues, but none of them came into relationship and right standing with God.

What good would it do?

Like, what good is a temporary healing on this side of eternity, but to spend eternity separated from God?

The greatest healing that you and I get to offer to the world is the forgiveness that only Jesus can offer.

Like, like I don't know if you get this, and I hope you get this.

There is no greater miracle than a person entering into relationship with Jesus.

Period.

Some people are like, well, Jason, like it's Easter.

How do we know the resurrection happened?

The resurrection happened because it keeps happening.

Every time a person makes a decision to follow Jesus, their life is brought from death to life.

Miracles happen all the time.

So, so why?

Why wouldn't you be on mission with Jesus?

Especially on a week like Easter.

Why wouldn't you be the instrument of healing that God uses to bring people who are far from Him from death back to life?

Here is the point of today.

If Jesus was a noticer and if Jesus was a reacher, and if Jesus was a healer, you and I get called to be that too.

So here's what I'm gonna pray for you.

You ready for this?

I'm gonna pray that God will give your heart seven days of insane courage.

Just try it for seven days.

Like four or seven days, your ears are attuned to the words spoken around you because you're noticing people.

For seven days, make the decision to say, I'm uncomfortable with this, but I'm gonna step across the aisle.

I'm gonna step across the workroom, I'm gonna step across my street and have a conversation with my neighbors because if Jesus was willing to reach out for a person who was far from him, why shouldn't I be like Jesus?

And finally, some of you, some of you, I'm gonna be honest, some of your friends have no idea that you're in a relationship with God.

What travesty would it be to go to your grave someday and the people closest to you die far from God because they didn't know what you knew?

What a tragedy to die with that in your heart, but never out of your mouth.

What would it look like if in the next seven days we just had insane courage?

And what if over the next seven days we just made this decision?

Today's the day I start a habit of my faith being public and celebrated.

Do you ever notice you don't hide the things you love?

You don't hide baby pictures, you don't hide the pictures of your vacation.

You love the things in your life and you invite others that love you to celebrate it with you.

Why would you share baby pictures or vacation pictures or anniversary pictures, but not share the thing that changed your life the most?

So, what if we all made this decision?

Seven days of courage, seven days of following Jesus, seven days of the miracles of Jesus being the same yesterday and today and forever.

Seven days of noticing, seven days of reaching, seven days of healing.

Here's how I want to end today.

All across this room, would you bow your head and close your eyes?

I'm gonna ask you in this next moment to just take ten seconds.

And in your own heart and your own words, would you just say that?

Would you say, God, give me courage?

Supernatural courage.

So, God, thank you for the miracle of Jesus.

Thank you for the example it sets for us that Jesus noticed this person who other people had turned a blind eye to.

Thank you for the example in Jesus that he was willing to touch a person that society had deemed unclean and that was the genesis of the miracle.

And Jesus, thank you that the miracle happened, the healing flowed through you.

But Jesus, we want to take what you did and we want to apply it to our life and our world.

Jesus, help us to notice the world around us, those far from you.

Help us to be willing to reach out, not to keep it to ourselves, but to reach out.

And God, I pray for miracles to flow through this church.

I pray that this church won't be big enough because we'll have to keep building bigger buildings to keep all the people who are coming through.

Because you heal.

You redirect lives, change hearts.

You forgive.

You heal, you restore.

So, Jesus, the miracle you've done in so many of our hearts, may it be the story that we tell over and over and over and over and over again here at Access Church.

Because we're on mission with Jesus.

God, I pray for courage to flow through the veins of the people in this room.

Open divine doors of opportunity.

May we not succumb to the pressure to live with the blinders on where my life is all about me and myself and I and keeping me happy, but may instead we live with our eyes wide open to the world around us.

May we live on mission with you.

And God, I pray that thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people will experience the miracle of salvation because we're willing to notice and reach and bring healing.

We thank you for that, God.