Virtue went out of our Lord on a regular basis. He came to minister, not to receive. After we are saved, we have the same calling.
Luke 6:19 And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.
Virtue Went Out
Virtue went out of our Lord on a regular basis. He came to minister, not to receive. After we are saved, we have the same calling. We are here to minister, not to receive. That is what the Bible means about denying yourself and taking up your cross. We die to what we want so we can do what the Lord wants us to do with our life. I believe that the first definition from the Webster’s 1828 Dictionary applies here:
Virtue – Strength; that substance or quality of physical bodies, by which they act and produce effects on other bodies. In this literal and proper sense, we speak of the virtue or virtues of plants in medicine, and the virtues of drugs. In decoctions, the virtues of plants are extracted. By long standing in the open air, the virtues are lost.
Virtue is also moral goodness but this definition applies to our text. But for us to minister to others, we have to take our qualities or physical bodies and then do something so that we can produce results in others. That is what our Lord did when he ministered. The main result we want to produce in others is spiritual growth. We want to help people to grow closer to the Lord. People had to get close enough to the Lord in order to touch him to get some of His virtue. We have to get people close to the Lord so that virtue can go out.
Weary in Well Doing
You are going to grow weary in well doing as you minister to others. That is because virtue is going out of you. A mom grows weary as she ministers to her children and raises them for the Lord. A lot of virtue has to go out of a woman to make this happen. A good mom is going to get weary in the process. If you are tired that is a good thing. Our Lord grew tired many times after ministering and virtue went out of Him. Men grow weary just working a job proving for their family and the work of God. That is a ministry. Pastoring a church will certainly make you weary when you have to deal with people. But it is a good weary. It is a weary in well doing. There is nothing wrong with that. You just need to come apart once in a while like our Lord did. Vacations where you rest in a secluded place are of the Lord. Vacations where you are running hither and yon are not. The purpose of a vacation should be to spiritually recharge you so you can minister more. Virtue went out of our Lord and virtue should go out of us too.
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