Welcome to our new project, the Daily Bible Devotional. The goal is to help you understand and apply

scripture as you go through a New Testament Bible read five days a week, Monday through Friday,

as we move from Matthew straight through to Revelation. In under four minutes each morning, we will recap the chapter,

make some application, present thought questions for the day, and offer a prayer together.

I'm excited about exploring God's word with you, so let's get started.

Welcome to our short Bible study today as we jump right in on Matthew chapter 8.

Matthew's gospel has a purposeful structure to build out the authority of Jesus.

Chapters 1 through 4 tell the story of Jesus in prophecy.

Chapters 5 through 7 are filled with Jesus' life-changing teachings.

Now, in chapters 8 and 9, the focus is placed squarely on

miracles. In today's short chapter, we are gifted the following stories, the healing of the leper,

the healing of the centurion servant, the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, the calming of the sea of

Galilee, and the demons cast into the swine.

This list forms a dynamic way of showing the power of Jesus over all things.

Upon closer examination, it shows that he can heal the body.

He has authority over space and time.

He overpowers the spiritual forces of darkness, and even the

natural world obeys his mighty will. From that, I'm convinced there are some things we can

draw and use today. Where can we go to escape the jurisdiction of Jesus? And why would we even try?

These stories give us tremendous confidence in how Christ can

benefit our lives. As a man was burdened with decay through leprosy, so are we with physical sickness

and spiritual death. Jesus, filled with compassion, promises to heal us of spiritual disease,

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