Richard, I appreciate the thoughts you brought out. It strikes me that Jesus is our Example in this chapter--He sought out the woman and placed Himself in her path. Well would it be for us to come in contact with people who do not have great light, who are in darkness and error, and have the opportunity to share with them about a better way. If we are willing to let Christ use us, He can lead souls into our pathway right in the everyday experiences of our lives. And as we do allow the light God has given us to reach hearts, we ourselves will be richly blessed, for it is "more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).
Do we want our Saviour to be satisfied in the accomplishment of His mission through us as His people? Then we are to work to help people come to saving faith in Him as the redeemer!
The Saviour is satisfied. He has tested her faith in Him. By His dealings with her, He has shown that she who has been regarded as an outcast from Israel is no longer an alien, but a child in God's household. As a child it is her privilege to share in the Father's gifts. Christ now grants her request, and finishes the lesson to the disciples. Turning to her with a look of pity and love, He says, "O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." From that hour her daughter became whole. The demon troubled her no more. The woman departed, acknowledging her Saviour, and happy in the granting of her prayer.
The beautiful thing about this woman's faith was that it was simple and persistent. Many times the people that we meet in the world from a very dark or heathen background are so open to truth that they will simply accept it as it is written--they are open to taking God at His word, because everything else they have tried has not worked. Others we meet who have some knowledge of God and His word, and may not be Seventh-day Adventists, but they love Jesus and have been deceived on some points. We are to deal gently with them, first finding points of common ground and helping them to realize that we love Jesus and are Christians, and that we desire to benefit them. Others, it may be harder to reach, as it was for Jesus in His ministry (or it may just take longer to reach them, as we know that after Christ's death and resurrection, many of the priests were obedient to the faith, according to Acts 6:7). Those that are often hardest to reach are those who feel they have no need of anything, and yet are in a spiritually lost condition. In Christ's dealing with this precious heathen woman, His mind was brought to see the contrast between the receptivity of this heathen to the cold rejection of those who should have been ready to receive the Messiah:
Jesus had just departed from His field of labor because the scribes and Pharisees were seeking to take His life. They murmured and complained. They manifested unbelief and bitterness, and refused the salvation so freely offered them. Here Christ meets one of an unfortunate and despised race, that has not been favored with the light of God's word; yet she yields at once to the divine influence of Christ, and has implicit faith in His ability to grant the favor she asks. She begs for the crumbs that fall from the Master's table. If she may have the privilege of a dog, she is willing to be regarded as a dog. She has no national or religious prejudice or pride to influence her course, and she immediately acknowledges Jesus as the Redeemer, and as being able to do all that she asks of Him.
Do we yield at once to what God shows us to be true? There is a lesson and a warning for us here as Seventh-day Adventists. Do we murmur and complain when more and more light shines upon us in the areas of health, lifestyle, relationships, prophecy, country living, stewardship, evangelism and witnessing, or any other area upon which we not only have the Bible, but the amazing blessing of additional counsel and specific situations addressed in the Spirit of Prophecy? Or do we rejoice that God is calling us to abide in Him to be able to follow the light--because He loves us? Let us remember that "all His biddings are enablings" {COL 331.1}.
May we pray that we will ever be open to receive the light as it shines upon us, and not be content with where we are today. Jesus wants to take us in a higher experience. That woman started the life eternal by coming to saving faith in Jesus. Many of the Jews thought they already had that life, and murmured when more light was brought to them in Christ as the Messiah. Their murmuring revealed that they did not have the life they thought they had. The manner in which we treat additional light is an indicator of where our hearts are at with Jesus. Like the Jews, as a church we are in a Laodicean condition, and we need Jesus abiding in the heart to cure the spiritual malady of the soul.
Revelation 3
14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Those who respond to Jesus' invitation begin the life eternal. It does not matter if you are a Laodicean Seventh-day Adventist and need to be born again by letting Christ enter your heart, or if you grew up not even knowing about God, and like the heathen woman come to accept what God shows you in Chirst. But the result is always the same in the heart renewed by grace: when we have this experience of living by faith on Christ, all the fruits of the Spirit will be seen in our lives--not one will be missing.