Matthew 8:3-4, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you dont tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” Jesus is always willing to make us clean. Isn’t that great news? In spite of our sin, our past, our failures, our mistakes, and so on, Jesus does not want us to stay that way. He wants us to be clean, to be forgiven, to come to him and accept the gift of salvation that he offers. But like this leper, we have to come to Jesus and we have to seek his blessings. Matthew tells us that immediately he was cured of his leprosy, there was no treatment regimen he had to go through, there was no therapy, there was no prescription to pick up; Jesus healed the man completely and at once. And that’s the way he wants to work in our lives as well, God wants to do something radical, something different, and he wants to do it now. But how often do we drag our feet, protesting, putting God off, telling him and ourselves that we have something else to do, something that we feel is more important, and that one day we will get serious about serving, loving, and honoring the Lord. We need to be careful that we do not allow those things to delay us so long that it is suddenly too late. And then there are still things that have to be done, this man was to go and show himself to the priest. Under the Old Testament Law the priest was the person who pronounced you clean or unclean for the purpose of coming back into the community. He had to show that his leprosy was really cured. But do you think he could keep such good news to himself? I imagine that everyone he saw he was telling what Jesus had done for him. And so should we. We cannot keep such good news a secret, it demands to be shared. Father, thank you for cleaning me and help me to tell others. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 11:26:13 +0000
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