Verses: Matthew
8:1-4
My thoughts about the
verses:
Imagine being in a place
where you are considered an outcast for who you are. You are not an outcast for what you
believe. In, fact you are an outcast just
because you are different than others.
Your life is a living nightmare because people do not understand you.
This is the situation
that the leper found himself in. He was
a reject of society not because of his life choices. He wasn’t rejected by society because of the
way he believed. Instead he was on the
fringes of society because of an illness that he could not control that had
overtaken his body.
We have to understand
that laws had been made early on to protect the society from leprosy. There was no known cure and it would easily
spread from one person to the next.
Therefor people were to be kept separate if they had illnesses so that
it would not pass and kill out the community.
We can accept that we
have a prejudice against things that we are afraid of. It doesn’t mean that we have a right to be
prejudice it is just something that we tend to do when we are afraid of
situations. We put others that are
different from us in a lower class of people.
This has happened so many times throughout history that it is hard not
to miss. Everything from the slaying of
individuals because of their religious followings, to shunning of people who
love people differently than us, to disregarding people that we feel are not as
smart as we are.
We need to dig deeper
into what is happening in this very moment.
The leaders of the society would definitely not be going anywhere near
this person. They would be afraid of
getting ill. How could they ever allow
themselves to be exposed to potential harm?
Yet, the image we have
is Jesus right there around the people that others feared. Jesus wasn’t running away from them. Instead Jesus was going near them. He did not fear them because he knew deep
down inside they had nothing he needed to fear.
You have to imagine the
confusion that the leper was feeling.
Why was this religious leader coming near him? Why was he not afraid of getting close to
them? Why was this man so much different
from all the others that they had seen?
Why was this leper so
important to Jesus? Jesus could have
healed anyone. Yet, for some reason
Jesus chose to heal this leper. Looking
this deep into the story we see the answer right before us. Jesus healed this person because of his
faith. He healed the leper because the
leper believed that Jesus had that power.
He believed that if Jesus chose to heal him he would be healed.
We have to accept that
Jesus has this power in our life. No
matter what has made us feel less than important to God it can be released from
those feelings if we only trust in God.
God doesn’t desire to separate us.
Instead, God wants us to be in close communion with us. When we study the word of God what we discover
it isn’t God that chooses to separate from us the chose is all ours. Yet,
if we go to Jesus asking for acceptance God will give us the acceptance. God can heal us from all if we only ask God
to do that for us.
Prayer:
We love you God. We praise you Jesus for your sacrifice for
us. We praise you for saying yes to us whenever
we come asking to be in communion with you.
Help us turn away the things of this world. Help us walk closer to you. In the name of the Savior we pray. Amen
Questions:
Have you accepted Jesus in your life? Are you running away from God because you are
afraid you will be rejected? What do you
need to turn over to God today? Are you
ready to walk hand in hand with the Risen Savior?
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