Archive for the ‘Bible’ Category
I am going to continue with Matthew 9:20-22 today. Actually the portion I want to examine is mentioned in Mark 5:30. This is where Jesus felt healing power go out of him when the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years touched his robe.
Energy is all around us, it is in all things, and it flows through all things. Some people are very in tuned to this energy.
I had been going through a rough time a couple of years ago and was attending a series of lectures about PTSD. During a break time, I was walking back to my seat when an older woman with long white hair came up to me and said “I felt energy leave me and attach to you when you walked by and I wanted you to have this”. She then pressed a crystal into my hand. I thanked her and told her I would send her energy back to her later.
On the way home, I remembered my promise and I released her energy. WOW! I felt a major release of energy flow out of me. I was amazed, why did I not feel that energy attach itself to me? There was so much of it and I was amazed that I had not felt when it had come to me. If we are not tuned into the energetic exchange around us, we do not feel it. I was turned into the energy on the way home when I released it and therefore I felt it.
Since we often do not know when an energetic exchange is going on, a good bedtime practice to get into is releasing all energy that is not your own, sending it back to whomever it belongs to and calling your energy back to you from where ever it may be. I like to send and receive the energy with the phrase “transmuted through Christ’s white light”, this cleans and raises its vibration.
Give this a try yourself and you may be in tune enough to the energy that you will feel it leave and you will be revitalized by your returning energy.
Matthew 9:20-22 tells of the woman who reaches out to touch Jesus to clear up the hemorrhage she had for the previous 12 years. This story is told in the middle of the story of the synagogue leader who had come to Jesus after his daughter had just died. Tuesday’s blog discusses the story with the synagogue leader and his act of desperation. Today’s story is also one of desperation and hope. According to Mark’s version, this woman had suffered a great deal from many doctors and had spent everything she had to pay them. This woman had gotten it into her mind that if she could just touch Jesus’ robe then everything would be OK.
Sometimes we tie big ‘miracles’ with daring acts. What was her daring act? She was considered ‘unclean’ because of the bleeding. This was a big deal especially for a rabbi or teacher in the Jewish community. There was a whole ritual that had to be performed after touching something unclean. She thought she could just slip in, touch his robe and no one would be the wiser and the act of touching Jesus was so tied up in her mind with being healed that it worked!
Let’s put this in modern terms. We have all heard of (if not actually experienced) an undiagnosed ailment. This may be a pain with no known organic reason. This could be a crippling disorder that just does not respond to medication. Whatever it is the person can see many doctors and go through all kinds of painful procedures and spend all their money and still be in pain. What our medicine fails to consider is the emotional basis of our illness.
When medicine fails there is often another reason for the illness and that is often emotional. There is a modern method that can often handle the emotional distress that is causing an illness. That is Meridian Tapping or EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). Through the expert handling of an experienced EFT practitioner, the emotional basis of the illness can be determined and then treated with a meridian tapping technique.
For more information on Meridian Tapping or EFT, go to www.naturallyresilient.com.
Tomorrow I will cover another aspect of this story: Jesus feeling the energy going out of him.
Desperation Leads to Answered Prayers
Posted by: Ann
August 17th, 2010 >> Bible, Energy, God, Manifesting
Matthew 9:18 starts the story of the synagogue leader who had a little girl that was not just dying but was dead! She had just died and in his panic and desperation he sought out Jesus. This was a daring act on his part as he was a leader and people looked up to him. Like famous people nowadays this man had a high up position and was in the limelight, at least in his area. Jesus had an uneasy relationship with the synagogue leaders, they were not too sure of him at this time and you might say he was under scrutiny. Maybe this was why this father did not come sooner but waited with hope that his daughter would improve. Maybe he was in denial, but then the unthinkable happened, she died. But in his panic this father knew that if any man could help, Jesus could.
Desperation is a very powerful emotion. This is the emotion that provides strength to a woman so she can lift a car off her child. Desperation is a strong emotion to put into prayer. The stronger the emotion the faster the prayer is answered. The answer may come as an idea that pops into your head like this father all of a sudden thinking of getting Jesus or it may actually cause something to materialize (the item may have always been there but you may not have ever noticed it before).
Desperation can cause us to act in ways we would not normally act. When desperate, we may appear to act irrationally which is what the mourners at the girls house thought of the father’s actions. They ridiculed him when he came back with Jesus. The girl was dead, they knew what death looked like. During this timeframe and society people were quite familiar with death. But desperation causes irrational acts, it causes people to take chances and sometimes those risks pay off.
Matthew 9:2-8 is another healing story but I think it has an interesting twist. A paralyzed man was brought to Jesus and “Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, ‘Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven.’”
Two things I want to point out, first who had the faith? It says seeing ‘their’ faith. Was this the faith of the men who brought the paralyzed man to Jesus or did this include the paralyzed man’s faith. I doubt that the paralyzed man had much if any say in where his friends took him so it may have just been the faith of the friends that Jesus could heal their friend. To me this says that the faith of another can help someone else. This is where prayers for someone else can be beneficial.
The second twist was the change in wording from what Jesus usually said. The usual phrase Jesus used in healing was ‘your faith has healed you’, but here he says ‘your sins are forgiven’.
Many illnesses are caused by our emotional state. I have seen many emotional problems manifest in physical form. It is often our emotional state knocking us in the head to get our attention but we still ignore them because our society and culture has so disjointed ourselves into compartments that don’t mix. We have doctors for the physical, psychologist for the mental and priest for the spiritual crisis. But a crisis in any one of these can cause changes and problems in one or two of the others. We are all tied together, we are not three different elements (body, mind and spirit) separated but one being that integrates all three.
This man may have been going through a spiritual crisis over some action that he could not move past and his body was accommodating this crisis by freezing or paralyzing his body so he could not physically move forward. By releasing and forgiving the event that sent him into the spiritual crisis the body followed suit and released the paralysis!
This is the story where Jesus cast demons out of two men. The demons enter a herd of pigs and the herd runs down the steep hillside and drowns in the lake. The herdsmen FLED to the nearby city and told everyone what happened. The ENTIRE town came out to meet this Jesus but instead of praising him for helping the two men, they beg him to go away and leave them alone.
Note the words and the event. The herdsmen “fled” to the nearby town. Fled has a special connotation. It means they are fleeing from something, it implies fear. The “entire” town came out, this can mean all kinds of things, the first thing that pops into mind is safety in numbers which is again a fear mentality. Then the people beg him to go away. Sounds like fear again.
How many times do we reject something because we are afraid? Think of what all we miss; the opportunities, the possibilities, the learning; all because we are afraid. What did the town miss out on because of their fear? They missed out on many more miracles and some great enlightening sermons.
What were they afraid of? It could have been economic disaster. The loss of a herd of pigs probably did set someone back economically. But what would have become of that person if he had invited Jesus to come to his house?
Sometimes when uncertainty hits, whether it is economic or health or relationships, we get stuck in the now and don’t look at the possibilities or the bigger picture. We lose sight of the miracles.
What does fear have to do with manifesting? Lots! Fear is the biggest impediment to manifesting that I know of. Fear prevents you from seeing the open doors, fear can lead to depression and anxiety. To manifest you must be optimistic and believe in a fabulous outcome and fear prevents this. Fear causes you to focus on the material, as the towns people did, and not see the fabulous miracle in front of you.
When things seem to be going against you, turn your thoughts around and start to look for the good and the promising and replace the fear with hope and faith that a better future is possible.
These verses talk about Jesus sleeping in the boat when a storm comes up and the disciples panic and wake Jesus up. Jesus says “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!”. Then he rebuked the wind and waves and calms the water. The disciples were amazed.
There are several things I want to point out in this. First Jesus asks why are they afraid and comments on their lack of faith. This applies to life in general. Let’s make this more personal. What are you afraid of? If you have a fear in your life the second question applies. Where is your faith?
Faith involves a trust that you will be ok, that you will be taken care of and it even goes beyond that to believing that the best possible outcome will occur. Faith is required in manifesting. You have to believe that what you want to occur will occur, in fact you have to believe or know that what you expect to occur will happen. You have to do more than want, you have to expect. You may want something but expect something else to happen. Your want and your expectation must be in congruence.
The second thing is that Jesus calmed the water. When you have Faith, the turmoil in life will calm. When you put your total trust and believe in a great outcome, the troubles you are in will seem smaller.
There is actually a more practical side to these verses. Jesus implies that if the disciples had faith, they could calm the waters. We don’t realize what power we have. This is where I will get a little weird for some of you. We can control the weather. All the turmoil in the world contributes a large part to the turmoil in the weather along with earthquakes and volcanoes.
When my son was younger, we would sit on the swings and call up rain clouds. Sometimes it would take a couple days when there was no clouds and we were in the middle of a drought, but they would come. I quit doing it because it gave me a headache. Jesse however did it with ease. Try it yourself.
This is another healing story. This time it is Peter’s mother-in-law (you never hear about Peter’s wife). This woman was in bed with a high fever but when Jesus touched her hand, the fever left and she got up and prepared a meal.
How many people do you know that can be very sick one minute then the next minute be well enough to feel like cooking for a guest?
The above verses go on to tell how people were brought to Jesus and he healed all the sick.
This reminds me of Dr. Eric Pearl, you can read his story in The Reconnection
This also leads me to think of the many articles I have read lately concerning the placebo effect. Researchers are discovering that in many cases the placebo actually does better than the drug being tested. They have even gone back to retest established drugs and are finding this to be so.
What all this boils down to is the ceremony. All through history and different cultures there have been healers of different types, Doctors, Shamans, Medicine Men etc but all they provide is a ritual. And this ritual whether it is a pill, incantations or surgery, if the patient believes it will work it probably will! It is all placebo effect but you have to believe with an unwavering faith.
When I was young, I had warts and one doctor told me to cut a potato in half and rub my warts with it then bury the potato under the house and my warts would disappear. I really did not believe this but tried it anyway and guess what it did not work. If he had done a better sells job I might have believed and then it would have worked. Our minds are much more powerful than we may think (and it is that unbelief that limits us).
Matthew 8:2-3 says “Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached Jesus. He knelt before him, worshiping. “Lord,” the man said, “if you want to, you can make me well again.” Jesus touched him. “I want to,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared. “
I ask you whose will healed the leper? Was it Jesus or the Leper?
Matthew 8:5-13 is a similar story where a Roman officer comes to Jesus pleading with him to heal his young servant who was “in bed, paralyzed and racked with pain”. The Roman officer impressed Jesus because he said “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed! I know, because I am under the authority of my superior officers and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say , ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come.’ And they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this or that,’ they do it.” Jesus told the Roman officer, “Go on home. What you have believed has happened.” And the young servant was healed that same hour.
Again I ask, whose ‘will’ actually caused the healing?
In the first healing, Jesus touched the leper which was totally taboo so Jesus already believed the leper was healed. In the second healing, Jesus did not even see the sick man and yet the young man was healed.
In both situations someone was asking for a healing with the belief that Jesus could heal. I believe that the belief was very important. If they had such belief in anything or anyone else it would have occurred.
Belief is a main requirement for manifesting. This is not the superficial, ‘I believe’ but the deep undeniable belief that this is the way it is. So I see that the people asking were the ones who actually created the healing. Remember the many times that Jesus said “your belief has made you well”.
“Do for others what you would like them to do for you. This is a summary of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” This is important. Right here it says that this is a summary of all taught in the law and the prophets. If you don’t learn anything else, learn this one thing!
This saying also goes by the name of ‘The Golden Rule’. Jesus thought it was so important, he told thousands about it in his sermon on the mountain. Most all cultures and religion have something akin to the golden rule and for a good reason. This is the key to manifesting. You have to send out the positive energy to be able to attract positive energy.
If you want compassion, be compassionate. If you want love in your life, be loving and forgiving of others. If you are constantly sending out negative energy you will attract the negative into your life. This is the main tenet in the law of attraction.
I know of a very successful business woman who cannot tolerate pessimistic people who are always looking at why something can’t be done. It is like trying to mix oil and water. The pessimistic people will attract pessimistic people to them and the can-do positive people will attract the optimist because neither type can really tolerate the other. Which type of personality do you think is more successful?
If you tend toward the pessimistic side, try being optimistic for a week. Tell yourself that you can go back to the ‘realistic’ pessimistic thinking after the week. However after the week is up and you allow yourself to be ‘realistic’ again, you will find that you weren’t realistic before, just negative and your new ‘realism’ will appear more optimistic!
I dare you to give it a try!
Manifesting with Matthew 4:6-7, 9-10 Cont. from July 6
Posted by: Ann
July 8th, 2010 >> Bible, God, Manifesting
The second temptation in verses 6-7 claims that the angels will protect you. (Don’t go thinking that this only applies to Jesus. God loves each of us immensely, no matter who we are.) Yes, the angels can protect you, but don’t go and do something foolhardy just to see that they will. You do have free will and the angels won’t interfere if they see that is what you want to do.
This free will business is tricky. God gave us free will. It is not free will if a decision you make can be condemned by God. It is like a dictator saying “you are free in my country” but then having anyone killed that does not do what he says. This is not true free will. Another interesting side note about ‘free will’ involves willing something to be or not. I have read so many articles and books about manifesting (these are real life stories) and one of the attributes for manifesting is to have a strong will for it to occur. This gives a whole new meaning to free will.
The third temptation of Christ in the wilderness is basically a form of bribery, doing what someone else wants you to do. No, hold the faith and do what you know you should do. In other words, be yourself. Be the best (insert your name here) you can be. Be true to yourself and who you are. God created you so you are who you are supposed to be. You have the likes and dislikes and talents for a reason. Yes it may be a thorn that you have to overcome to build character that you do not possess but more than likely it is for you to work with and develop to its full potential. Believe in yourself and God will provide the doors and opportunities and that does not involve lowering your standards to accept something someone else is holding out with strings attached.