This summer I have been reading the four gospels. At the moment I am in the Book of Acts. In Luke I noticed that Luke several times was saying that people came to Jesus to hear him and to be healed from their diseases. When Luke is recapturing what the gospel was all about, he is saying in Acts that it is about what Jesus began to do and to teach. Jesus was healing the sick and preaching the good news in the power of the Holy Spirit.

People came to hear Jesus because of the kind and gracious words he spoke. He always cheered people up by his words, "Fear not! Take courage!". He was encouraging people. But when he taught them the word of God he was different from the theologians. He spoke with authority. He spoke with firmness. He spoke words laden with power. He spoke deliverance. He spoke freedom. He spoke healing into people's lives. No wonder they came to hear him expand the eternal plan and purpose of God for their lives.

Jesus was not only a man of the Word, he was also a man of the Spirit. Power proceeded from him to heal people. Therefore people came to him with their pain and sufferings. They came to be healed by the power that was overflowing from him.

If we live by the Word and the Spirit people will come to us for the same reasons they came to Jesus!