Matthew 9:18-38

An official came to Jesus asking for help. His daughter was at home, dead, and he wanted Jesus to come and revive her. As Jesus was leaving to go to the man's home, a woman tried to sneak up and touch the fringe of His robe, believing that even that small contact would be enough to heal her of a long time affliction. Jesus confirmed that she had been healed, not by touching His robe, but by her faith. He continued to the official's home where He brought the man's daughter back to life.

Jesus left from there to go to another house, two blind men following Him all the way, trying to get His attention. Unable to get His attention while traveling, they followed Him into the house. Jesus asked them if they believed He could heal them. They said yes and Jesus healed them right away. It's not clear why, but Jesus told these two men not to tell anyone what happened to them. Regardless of His command though, these two went and told everybody.

Next a demon-possessed man was brought to Jesus. This man was unable to speak due to the possession. Jesus cast the demon out and the man was able to speak again. All the people were amazed because they hadn't seen anything like this before. The Pharisees, ever skeptical, chalked it up to Jesus being in league with the devil, reasoning He must have control over the demons because the ruler of the demons gave Him the power.

All of these people that came to Jesus had the utmost faith and were healed or had loved ones healed because of their faith. They experienced Jesus first hand and came away changed because of it. The Pharisees were just looking for something to catch Him on. They wanted desperately not to believe. Jesus didn't fit in with their notion of how we are supposed to relate with God or others. They would rather believe that the things He was doing were rooted in evil than admit that maybe they'd had it wrong. Even people today let their preconceived ideas prevent them from accepting the truth that God has for us. When we open our minds and allow God to reveal Himself to us, only then can we fully understand who Christ is and accept the new way of life He calls us to lead.

Jesus traveled around to all the towns in the area, teaching and healing. He saw their need for leaders who understood the things He was teaching and the old guard just wasn't getting it. He told the disciples to pray for workers to bring in the harvest. People wanted to know God, but to reach them all, people needed to be trained up who understood what Jesus was teaching and take it to the people. Christ calls all Christians to be those workers. The harvest is still plentiful and Christ is still calling workers to go out into the fields.