Just the other day I posted on Facebook and said, “May we listen ONLY to the voice of Jesus and NOT the world”. I was prompted this thought due to a situation I had seen occurring via Twitter.

When we choose to be obedient to the Lord and try to follow His will, there will always be those who disagree and try to rebuke us for it. Nowadays with social media, the voice of haters and naysayers is much louder.

Then just the other night at Bible Study, we were reading through and discussing the miracles of healing that Jesus performed in Mark 5:21-43. In case you’ve never read or heard of these let me give you a summary.

There is a man named Jairus that comes to Jesus and pleads with Him to come save his daughter who he says is dying. Jesus agrees and begins to follow Jairus to his home. On their way, a large crowd is surrounding Jesus and likely slowing down their progress. During this time a woman in the crowd who needs healing reaches out and touches Jesus’ cloak. The woman is healed and Jesus stops, turns around and ask who touched Him. Again, here is a delay in the answering of Jairus’ prayer. The woman tells Jesus that it was her who had touched his cloak and Jesus says to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”. These are likely the words that Jairus hopes to hear Jesus speak for his own daughter.

Now as they are close to continuing to the home of Jairus, some people from his home come to him and say that his daughter has died. In this moment, his hope is seemingly crushed which would be understandable.

However, Jesus says to him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”.

Right here in this moment Jairus has a choice of who he will listen to. Either he listens to the group of people and gives up or he listens to Jesus and has faith.

They all eventually get to the home of Jairus where people are mourning the girl as well as laughing at Jesus because He says that she is not dead but only sleeping. Jesus sends away the crowd of doubters, goes to the little girl and heals her.

Jairus was in the middle of hearing two voices: one speaking life (Jesus) and the other speaking death (the crowd).

One of the things that I love about this passage is the first word used in verse 36 which says, “Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, ‘Don’t be afraid; just believe.’”. Many translations use the word overhearing or the phrase “having overheard” but when you look at the Greek word used it is parakouó which means (1) refuse to hear (2) disobey or (3) disregard. You see Jesus was basically ignoring the words of the crowd that spoke death to Jairus.

In moments like this, we must choose to ignore the negative voices and choose to listen only to the voice of the One who brings life!