In these few verses (Matthew 4:23-25), we clearly see Jesus’s priorities. Teaching and preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease. That’s what He spent His ministry years doing.
I love that it says He proclaimed the good news of the kingdom. It’s not bad news. Jesus’s message THEN AND NOW is GOOD NEWS! It’s not another 10 commandments we can’t keep. It’s not more rules to try to remember and follow. It’s not another law we’ll be punished for breaking. It’s not another tithe we have to pay.
The message of the Kingdom is GOOD. According to Jesus in Luke 4:18-21:
– It’s captives being set free.
– It’s the blind receiving their sight.
– It’s the oppressed being delivered.
– It’s salvation and God’s favor in abundance.
And Jesus doesn’t just talk about it in church. He goes into the streets and carries it out . . . literally!
Jesus came to earth on a love mission. Yes, He was here to live a perfect life so He could die a sacrificial death for our sins. Yes, He was here to show us how life is SUPPOSED to be lived. Yes, He was here to die and then rise from the dead and go back to the Father.
But it was all because of LOVE. It was all because of how much the Holy Trinity LOVES each and every one of us.
It was because of His love for the people in Galilee that He hated seeing them weighed down by the hundreds of laws religion had imposed on them. It was because of His love for them that He hated seeing them living oppressed and depressed and broken lives. It was because of His love for them that He wanted them whole and He wanted them free.
Because that’s how He created them to live.
So He offered wholeness and freedom to the people who came to Him in Galilee. That’s what they needed. And that’s what they got.
He feels the same way about you. He loves you and wants you to be whole and free.
And He has provided everything you need to live the life He created you to live.
What are you going to do with it?
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Matthew 4:23-25 / Amplified Bible
23 And He went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the good news (Gospel) of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every weakness and infirmity among the people.
24 So the report of Him spread throughout all Syria, and they brought Him all who were sick, those afflicted with various diseases and torments, those under the power of demons, and epileptics, and paralyzed people, and He healed them.
25 And great crowds joined and accompanied Him about, coming from Galilee and Decapolis [the district of the ten cities east of the Sea of Galilee] and Jerusalem and Judea and from the other [the east] side of the Jordan.