For the Reachers

There are people who are resilient. People who see a door closing and punch through walls to get in. People who just don't give up. She was one of them. She had heard of Him and His works and that He was in her district. And she followed hard after Him with loud and urgent cries begging that He, her Lord, the Son of David, have mercy on her and deliver her daughter from demon possession. He did not answer. Not even when His disciples pleaded that He send her away. Her cries were irksome. And she was not going to stop. She was not growing weary. Only louder. And it was evident that she was going to follow them however long it took. This thing called perseverance...

"I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel."

Yes. He was not sent to do works there. Not to her people. Not at the time at least. And He was simply passing through the town to get to the sea of Galilee. Yet she, a Canaanite by birth presented with one closed door after another, came to Him and knelt before Him and ate of Him. She worshipped and asked her Lord to help her.

She was pleading for a bread that was before her time and she knew that. He knew that.

And He answered, "It is not right (proper, becoming, or fair) to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs."

She was now presented with a wall so high and the option to walk away or still cry for bread, but her soul was fainting for bread. She had seen something so clearly and was going to get it. She was not going to leave His feet empty handed. Because really, walls are simply doors in need of a different set of instructions.

"Yes, Lord, yet even the little pups eat the crumbs that fall from their young masters’ table."

You see, when you're hungry for bread even when it isn't handed to you, crumbs suffice to whet your appetite for bread. And she was begging for bread. She, a Canaanite, was begging to receive her portion from Christ (the bread of life) before her time.

In the spirit realm, He saw her standing from the floor and seated on the table with her hand reaching, stretched out, taking and eating her portion of bread. How could He deny her? How could He say no to someone who's faith quantum leaped her and qualified her to receive something that was to be presented to her and her people at a later time? Faith is NOW (Hebrews 11:1) and hers was beckoning His Hand to move.

Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you wish." And her daughter was cured from that moment (Matthew 15:22-28 Amplified Version)

I have heard of this story every which way and for the longest time, I hungered for a fresh revelation from it. This time, I saw faith in the most visual sense.

Here was a Canaanite woman asking for the portion of the Israelites that Christ was sent to minister to. It seemed impossible. Jesus was sent to the House of Israel. The Greeks and Gentiles were to partake of Him after His death and resurrection when He tore the curtain in two so that all can have access to God through Him.

But she, forsaking her gods and beliefs, believed and knew that Christ was the Messiah that God had sent. She had submitted to His Lordship and saw Him as the Son of David, having engrafted herself in the family of God. In her eyes, she had accepted that Jesus came and that He had died to save people like her and that He resurrected. She was acting in faith that is NOW seeing the curtain torn, believing in her heart and confessing with her mouth that Jesus is Lord. And that is what qualified her to receive a miracle before her time (before Jesus actually died and resurrected)

You see, when you are in faith, you are in agreement with heaven’s reality, where everything is already done, finished, and completed. When you are operating in Faith you are operating in the eternal realm. In the kingdom, everything is first spiritual, and by faith we reach out and bring the promise into this natural three dimensional world. That's why God only responds to Faith. Faith transfers the answer from the spiritual realm to the natural realm.

Faith has eyes. The Canaanite woman's response attests to that. She had a revelation that declared that even the unworthy (dogs) still eat of bread crumbs from those eating bread at the table and though indirect, they were partaking of bread even in the smallest quantity because they chose to.

There's a lesson in there for each one of us. Revelation or "seeing" is the greatest asset of the life of faith. You have to believe in your heart that what you say with your mouth will come to pass and then be bold enough to say it, as bold as the Canaanite woman. 

The promise of God is this: If you can see it, provision comes with it. God does not frustrate you by giving you vision without provision.

Habakuk 2:3 paraphrased

"Your vision will not deceive or disappoint but it will surely come; it will not delay on its appointed day."

Maybe that's why God told Habakuk to write it down. Faith then becomes your title deed, proof and evidence. That's why Jesus could not deny her request.

And God does not ask for much, even that you have faith as small as a mustard seed (which is about the size of half a grain of rice). That's all He asks. Because faith is what makes our prayers (which are in line with God's perfect will) work and not our prayers that make faith work. What you see is what you get. It's a spiritual truth. Only believe. Only believe. Only believe.

We all fall into the spiral of unbelief from time to time and our faith gets deactivated when we elevate circumstance above who God says He is (and He is High above it all) 

But know this: No one can steal your inheritance from you as God's son/daughter. No one. Not even the devil. Only you can hinder yourself from receiving it.

Faith is for the reachers.

Maybe you see yourself typified in this portion of scripture as one of the dogs only unlike her, you are satisfied with crumbs that fall from the table. That is not your portion.

You have been called to sit and eat at the table and not the floor. Stop settling for bread crumbs when Christ has qualified you and openly invited you to sit and dine with Him at a feast prepared by God Himself just for you. So exercise your backbone. Get up from your knees, stand to see your bread then sit and eat it. It is yours. Reach out and take your portion.