Revelation Requires Responsibility

A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, 26and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse— 27after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. 28For she thought, “If I just touch His garments, I will get well.” 29Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Mark 5:25-29 NASB

Scripture tells us that she thought to herself "If I just touch His garments, I will get well." Where had she heard that this was possible?  We do not see anywhere before this time where people were healed by touching Jesus' clothes. We also do not see people sharing stories of this taking place. Where did this revelation come from? This thought must have come to this woman as a whisper from the Spirit of God. This was an amazing revelation from God which seems to only be given to this suffering woman who had lost everything and had endured much from the works of men. But what would have happened if she received this revelation and then never reached out to touch Christ? This revelation (as awesome as it was) would have remained a revelation but would have never manifested in reality. Her faith and obedience took the revelation from remaining a spiritual truth into becoming a reality that touched the physical world. 
​Specifically in the American the church today, we have a tendency to receive new revelations but never see those revelations manifest. On a weekly or even daily basis, most of us receive numerous new revelations from God's word, or through His people. This can be a great blessing but it can also become what we constantly seek instead of seeing those revelations come into reality. 
Paul addressed this exact issue when discussing the last days in his letter written to Timothy. Paul says that in the last days there will be people who are: always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 Timothy 3:7 NASB
What Paul is addressing here is people who are constantly learning new things about God but are never coming to know those things through experiential knowledge. The word that Paul uses for knowledge here means: contact-knowledge; first-hand, experiential knowing. So Paul is letting us know that in the last days there will be many people learning new things but everything they are learning is only head knowledge. They never come to the point of actually experiencing what they are learning. 
This woman in Mark 5 was faced with the same decision: "take what I heard and reach out and experience healing or learn something new but never receive healing." She could have remained a suffering woman who possibly knew something that others didn't; but what good would that have been? Our steps of faith and obedience are the conduit that bring the revelations from God down to earth. In these last days in which we are living we must not become the people that Paul warns us about in 2 Timothy 3:7. We must be people who are doers of the word and not just hearers. People who take risky steps of faith like this woman did and see God move in ways we have never seen before. 

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some areas in your life where God is asking you to take a step of faith? 

2. What are some new things you are learning about God today? How do those things relate to your everyday life?