Don't Let Jesus Off The Hook

And He answered, It is not right (proper, becoming, or fair) to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs. She said, Yes, Lord, yet even the little pups little whelps eat the crumbs that fall from their [young] masters' table. Then Jesus answered her, O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you wish. And her daughter was cured from that moment. Matthew 15:26-29

This woman did not let Jesus’ first answer of no stop her from demanding that He do something to help her daughter. Jesus flat out told her that He wasn’t sent for her and she didn’t let Him get away with it. I know how that sounds, but that is exactly what happened. Now Jesus knew that He was going to cast the demon out of her daughter and He knew that she was going to persist that He did. The point that we are shown here in Matthew is that Jesus loves it when we come to Him and earnestly expect and persist, even to the point of demanding, that He act. Jesus calls this great faith. The attitude that this woman had, recognized that Jesus was the only source for the answer that she needed and Jesus was not offended in the least at her demands.

Jesus tells us to pray with the same expectant and persistent attitude, Luke 11:6-8 and Luke 18:1-8. When Jesus was here in the flesh, He was moved when people came to Him and earnestly expected Him to act. Jesus loved it when they would not take no for an answer. The power of Jesus was not in His physical flesh, His power was in His Spirit, it was Jesus‘ Spirit that loved this kind of attitude. The Truth is also that Jesus’ Spirit is even more active in the world today, then it was when His flesh was here. So do not let Jesus off the hook, tell Him He needs to act and that it is right for Him to act.

I have a Jewish friend and He tells me that the only difference between Jews and Gentiles can be summed up like this. When God says that He is going to destroy the world, the Gentiles fall down and cry about it. Yet the Jews go to God and say wait a minute, let‘s talk about this first. That is the attitude that Jesus said that He loves and that is how Jesus told us to act.

We have no problem acting like this when our backs are against the wall, but there does not have to be a life threatening reason to act with such passion. Our Lord wants us to be this passionate in every pursuit of Him. Faith comes from hearing this Truth and the Holy Spirit will not let this Truth fall void to the earth. He will cause this kind of earnest expectation to grow to its fullest measure in each and every one of us. He has too, the world needs it way too much!