Matthew 8.2-4 Mark 1.40-45 Luke 5.12-16
Fame is something that most people dream about achieving but
is a burden to those who have it. The
fame of Jesus was spreading throughout the nation as he traveled from city to
city teaching and healing the people.
The crowds that were coming out to seek healing and hear Him teach were
growing but this does not seem to be the goal that Jesus had. He was glad to serve and teach the people but
it seems that growing crowds began to be more of a hindrance than a help to His
ministry. Most of us would have had a
tendency to define the success of our ministry by the size of the crowds. Jesus is clearly not motivated by the numbers
of people surrounding Him. Jesus knows
the hearts of the people in the crowds and He recognizes that the size of the
crowd is not what is important. They were
flocking to Him in order to experience or witness miracles while He was much
more interested in transforming their lives.
Today people continue to seek for entertainment and feeling better while
God is far more interested in our worship and holiness.
JESUS CLEANSES A LEPER: As Jesus is traveling in the region
of Galilee a man who is covered with leprosy comes and declares that he
believes Jesus can heal him if He was willing.
This faith and desperation moves Jesus to compassion and He states that
He is willing then touches the man and he is immediately cleansed. Leprosy was a dreaded disease that was
painful and usually fatal but also forced those who had it to live in isolation
in order to keep the disease from spreading to others. This man fell down before the Lord and pleads
for Him to heal him. This is a clear
declaration of faith in the power of Jesus to heal as well as a recognition of
his own dependence. These two responses
are what God continues to look for in the hearts of men. We must come to the point in our lives when
we recognize our sin and our own inability to resolve this problem. We then must believe that Jesus is the only
means through which we can be saved from our sin. Jesus is our only solution to sin just as He
was this man’s only hope for healing.
Jesus does something that must have taken the man by total
surprise. He reached out His hand and
touched him. It is likely that this man
had not felt the touch of another human being in quite some time. The leper was cleansed and must have been
overwhelmed with relief and joy. The
Lord Jesus does wonderful things in the hearts and lives of those who believe
in Him.
JESUS COMMANDS SILENCE: What Jesus does next kind of takes
us by surprise. He commands the man to
keep silent about the miracle and simply go to the temple to present himself to
the priest as Moses had commanded Lepers to do in the Law. It seems strange to us the Jesus did not want
others to know about this miracle. We
are commanded to tell others about Jesus while this man was commanded to keep
silent. There is no way to be sure about
why Jesus requested anonymity, but is was more than likely because this kind of
notoriety would only end up attracting more and more people who were just
interested in His healings but not in His teachings. Whatever the motives were; the man did not
obey and began to spread the news to all with whom he came in contact. When God does a work in our lives we should
be quick to tell others how they too can find forgiveness in Jesus. Our message must be a clear one of faith and
forgiveness through the blood of Jesus.
Too often the message that is proclaimed today is one of health and
happiness instead of hope and holiness. Jesus
does not want to attract large crowds that are just looking for comfort but
have no desire to be set free from their sin.
JESUS CONTINUES IN PRAYER:
The man could not keep silent about what had happened to him so the news
of Christ’s ability and willingness to heal leprosy was spread far and
wide. As a result of this, Jesus was no
longer able to go into the cities but stayed out in the wilderness areas where
the people had to purposefully come out to seek Him out. This location would accomplish two things:
first, it would improve the quality of the crowd and second, it allowed Jesus
to escape from the crowds more easily in order to go find a quiet place to
pray. We can clearly see that the
relationship that Jesus had with the Father was far more important to Him than the
size of His ministry on earth. Too often
the “success” of our ministries become more important to us than our walk with
the Lord. We must never allow that to
happen in our hearts because it will only serve our own pride and make our
hearts cold toward the Lord. Those who
neglect prayer and fellowship with God in order to promote their own ministries
will inevitably end up losing both. Our
walk with God must be our first priority and our greatest passion in life.
APPLICATION: Trust in the power and grace of God to be able
to meet all of our needs according to His will.
Seek to remove all forms of self-reliance from our lives in order to
trust exclusively in the Lord for forgiveness.
Proclaim the transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ instead of promoting self-improvement. Do not allow the pursuit of happiness to
outweigh our pursuit of holiness. Make
fellowship with the Lord our highest priority instead of the size of our
ministries.
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