Hello dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Today, let’s look at the attitude that Peter’s mother-in-law had after she was healed by Jesus:
And He came to her and raised her up, taking her by the hand, and the fever left her, and she began waiting on them.
— Mark 1:31
In Mark’s fast-paced gospel, we see Jesus in this scene right after He began recruiting His disciples. He comes to Capernaum, where Simon Peter’s house was located. We know from the other gospels that this would be His sort of headquarters.
After having preached and taught at the synagogue, Jesus goes to visit Simon Peter’s home. When He gets there, He finds his mother-in-law sick with a fever.
Now Simon’s mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever; and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her.
— Mark 1:30
What is interesting here is that when they saw their mother-in-law’s condition, they immediately turned to Christ. At this point, they already knew that Jesus was able to heal the sick. Even after walking with Him for a short while, they had already seen the amazing things He could do.
This not only speaks to the faith they had in Christ to heal their mother-in-law but also the confidence they had to ask.
Here we find an object lesson on prayer. Prayer relies not only on the faith we have in Christ but also on the confidence to ask our Lord for what we need in accordance with His divine will. This is a kind of teaching that Jesus shared with His disciples on how they should pray and ask the Father:
And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
— 1 John 5:14
As believers, we need to understand that one of the means by which God has ordained for us to receive what He has willed to provide for us is through prayer. In other words, prayer is not about nudging God to do what He did not will to do. It is not about us forcing Him to act outside of His will. Rather, prayer aligns with His divine will to bring to pass what He wills to bring to pass. Therefore, when we ask for anything within His will, He is pleased to give it to us, and He is glorified in our prayer as we ask Him to do what He wishes:
Whatever you ask in My name, this will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
— John 14:13-14
This is why the psalmist tells us to delight ourselves in the Lord, and He will give us the desires which please Him and therefore bring them to pass. A better way of looking at this is that as we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will fill our hearts with the kind of desires that He wishes to accomplish in our lives. In this way, everything we ask for will come to pass because it aligns with His divine will.
Delight yourself in Yahweh;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
— Psalm 37:4
As we return to the story in Capernaum, we find that Jesus responds to their request and heals Peter’s mother-in-law. Luke’s account of the event shows us Jesus rebuking the fever, and it immediately left her:
And standing over her, He rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she stood up and began waiting on them.
— Luke 4:39
This illustrates that when the disciples brought this matter to Jesus, they had faith that He could do something about it and the confidence to ask Him to do so, resulting in Jesus healing Simon’s mother-in-law.
What’s interesting in this short narrative is Peter’s mother-in-law’s response immediately after she was healed. All accounts of the story in the gospels tell us that she immediately started waiting on them. In other words, she had a fever and couldn’t do anything, and then Jesus healed her, and she immediately started serving the guests.
In the culture of the day, this could mean that she brought some refreshments for them and tended to some of their needs. This was classic Jewish hospitality.
The woman’s immediate response to start serving the guests tells us of the sense of gratitude that she had. She understood that now that she was healed, there was a responsibility she needed to tend to.
This is the kind of response we need to have. As we have been saved from our fallenness, our response, just like Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, should be to deliver ourselves into a place of submission and begin to serve our Master in every way that He asks of us. This is what Paul refers to when he speaks to the Romans and tells them that they need to present their members as instruments for righteousness:
and do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
— Romans 6:13
It is also the same idea that he later speaks about offering our bodies as living sacrifices:
Therefore I exhort you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—living, holy, and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
— Romans 12:1
As believers, we need to understand that we have been saved from death and brought back to life. The main purpose of our resurrection in Christ is so that God may be glorified as we serve Him in all the ways that He requires of us.
The question we need to ask ourselves as believers is how are we serving the body of Christ? Have we identified all the ways by which we can be useful to the body? Are we using all the gifts we have been given to build up the body of our Lord Jesus Christ?
I pray this word serves as a reminder that we are saved to serve.
May the Lord our God turn His face towards you and give you peace.
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