Jesus Touched Him

Dear Weekly Readers!

Recently on a mission trip, the Lord allowed me the great privilege to spend a little time with people with leprosy.   In light of that, I would like to share from the Bible a little about the leper that came to Jesus to be healed.

Jesus Touched Him

In Matthew, Chapter 8: 1-4, and in several of the gospels, an event is told about Jesus healing a man with leprosy.

In verse one, we see that when Jesus came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.  We came to learn in scriptures that many who followed him did so for the wrong reasons.  Maybe they came to be healed, maybe they wanted to go where there was a great movement of people, maybe they were curious, or wanted to be where their friends were.

Today we can be pretty sure that even in our churches many people are there for the wrong reasons.  Or even if they are there for the right reasons, maybe they do not yet really know Jesus. We leave these things in the Lord’s hands, however, because He is fully capable of knowing all things.

Now there came a leper and worshipped Jesus, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. v2

Leprosy, like sin, was an incurable, very destructive and debilitating disease.   I believe there is a picture for us to learn from this disease.  Once a person was pronounced unclean by the priest, he or she was shunned forever.  They were deemed not suitable to enter into the presence of healthy people.  They were rejected of men, they were put away to be alone or with other lepers, they could not be touched by a single person.  They were considered totally unfit.

This is what sin does to mankind.  We are totally unfit for heaven, to be in the presence of the Lord.  I am not talking only about those that live in outright sin.  The Bible says:   All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6

Therefore, we all have had the sin of leprosy.  We all either are, or were sin sick and as it says in Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags…

Each one of us needs to fall on our face (come humbly before Him) and worship the Lord even as this man did.   Another gospel says this man was full of leprosy.  In Leviticus 13:13 it says

Then the priest shall consider: and, behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean.

You see, when we understand that we are complete sinners, not just a good person who does this sin or that sin once in a while, but rather that we are completely lost and rejected without Christ Jesus, then we will worship Jesus in Spirit and in Truth.

What did Jesus do when this sinner came to Him? The same thing He does even still today for all those that come believing the Jesus is the Way the Truth, and the Life. Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean.

O dear sinner reading this! Jesus loves you! He is still the Great Physician. He is the only one that can make you whole again. He is the only One that can make you acceptable before the Father in Heaven. The lifelong plague of the sin will be washed away just as the leprosy was gone from the man in our story.

Your trying will not do it. Your works will not do it. Only the precious blood of Jesus and the power of His mighty name are able to make you whole again.

Come to Jesus today, for tomorrow you never know!

In Jesus name, Amen.


May The Lord Bless your week!   John R.