Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean

  Good morning. After all those wonderful words we've been talking about, Jesus comes down from the mountain. He is met by a leper. "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” There were different skin diseases back then that were called leprosy, but they were not necessarily the awful thing we are familiar with. The people were still considered unclean. Of course you were considered unclean if you touched someone who had leprosy. Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” He was immediately cleansed. Jesus told him to tell no one but to go follow the law: show yourself to the priest, and present the offering that Moses commanded, for a testimony to them. That would be hard to do – not telling anyone. What would you do? Me, I would run home and tell my family and friends. What would they do? They would probably hug me! That would probably make them unclean, since no offering had been made. I might wind up not even going to the priest. When you go to the priest, what would you do – tell them that Jesus touched you and cleaned you! A centurion comes to him and says that his servant is lying paralyzed. Jesus says that he will come and heal him. The centurion says that he is not worthy for Jesus to come to his house, but just say the word and the servant will be healed. That causes Jesus to marvel. ”I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.” That would be like a non-Christian today asking God to heal someone, while the Christian goes to the doctor without praying. (of course that does not mean that you do not go to the doctor – but at least give God first shot at it.) Jesus ends with “go your way; let it be done to you as you have believed.” And of course his servant was healed right away. Father thank You that we have faith for You to heal us and our family. We trust in You always.

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