Why Jesus Rebuked the Fever...

 

I spent a large portion of this last week "in the grip" of a fever. The experience left me with a greater appreciation for why Jesus "rebuked" the fever to cure Peter's mother-in-law. When fever has you in its grip, it touches every part of you: appetite, energy, comfort, the ability to think straight, and the ability to rest. Even low grade fever feels like someone poured a toxin into your nervous system that is coursing around your body - which surges and pulses between hot and cold like someone is playing with your thermostat. This produces waves of goosebumps that feel like a current surging through your skin. With fever's debilitating hold on someone -it is no wonder Jesus rebuked it! Fever is a time when "weakness" is NOT an excuse for not desiring to work - it's the truth of "I am not able!" There are also spiritual times when we need to be "rescued", because we have become captive in the grasp of some sinful debilitating influence. Paul warned of this - "know you not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, slaves you are of whom you obey?" Therefore, if we have yielded ourselves to sin's corrupt influence, and realize that we are enslaved in its debilitating grip, we need of Jesus to "rebuke" sin and set us free! We must learn to fear sin's debilitating power and to recognize when and if we are in its tenacious grasp. The signs will likely be: spiritual apathy, weakness, loss of appetite, inability to think clear, and inability to rest or rejoice. Once we recognize that we have lost our freedom and are in the grip of sin's debilitating hold- let's look to The Lord to "rebuke" sin and set us free! When Jesus "rebuked" the fever that gripped Peter's mother-in-law, it released her and she immediately got up and began to serve those around her - that's what we will do when Jesus rebukes what grips us and set's us free!