When Jesus was on His way to the house of Jairus to raise the ruler's daughter to life, the crowd accompanying Him was so great as to throng and press Him. They were interested in His work, talking about what He had done, excited, and curious to see and hear more.
But their contact with Him brought no special blessing to them; and they were really in the way of the timid woman who was struggling through the crowd to touch but the border of His garment. The touch brought to her actual life, and she knew it. It was the touch of faith.
The same story has been re-enacted ever since. Today it is popular, and really almost necessary, in order to be counted respectable, to talk about the Christian religion and to patronize it. The crowd is thronging about the Lord. But how many who are about Him are touching Him with the touch of faith, for the healing of the soul, and for the life that heals?
The multitude needed the life no less than the woman. But they did not feel the need. The work of the Lord was regarded only as a matter of deep interest, for intellectual discussion, and as a good thing generally. But today, as then, it means life to the dying, and so few realize there is daily spiritual life in touching Christ by faith.
Many who long for deliverance from the power of sin are hindered from coming to the Lord for life by the formalism and lifelessness which well nigh hides the Christ from view. Yet, thank God, as the living Christ is lifted up, timid souls are pressing in among the crowd and finding life.--Present Truth, May 31, 1894--Timeline: IV-30 (The Invalid Woman; Jairus' Daughter)--Matthew 9:18-22.