Boat-Rocker♥

Sunday, November 23, 2008 ♥

I was reminded of this passage when I was reading mark and it kind of remind me of the message I've preach in Myanmar. So I thought I'll share it with the cell what I am seeing in this passage.

Mark 1:40-45
40. Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, "If You are willing, You can make me clean."
41. Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, "I am willing; be cleansed."
42. As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.
43. And He strictly warned him and sent him away at once.
44. and said to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."
45. However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the matter, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places; and they came to Him from every direction.

If you know anything about a leper or leprosy it actually is a disease and if you read in the bible and if I didn't remember wrongly that people say/believe it was a punishment from God because you are a sinner so in other words leper/leprosy is unclean or dirty. In the past, there was no cure for leprosy and if left untreated, leprosy can be progressive, causing permanent damage to the skin, nerves, limbs and eyes. So when that happens your limbs will stop working because your nerves are damage causing it not to function well and many of us is like this spiritually. Spiritually we are LEPERS. 3 parts to share what I want to say.

Why do I say we are lepers?
1) Simple because we let ourselves be bound in our sins, insecurity, past failures, past mistakes, people's comments and thoughts and all this things causes us to be cripple in our spiritual walk with God because we choose to let it keep us down and not climb back up, we don't know how to face it, how to deal with it and much less have the boldness to face the problem. If you check the world teens today when they face a problem they run away and if they can't run, they cut themselves and if they can cut themselves, they commit suicide. Like many of you I was once a leper and still is because I'm still dealing with issues in my life and sometimes I don't dare to, like the recent case of me being remove from course it was a blow to me but thankfully there was leaders and God to support me and walk me through it. When we don't deal with our issues we are like leaving our leprosy untreated and hence cripple ourselves.

2) In verse 41-42 we can see that Jesus was move with compassion and healed the leper and the leper was cleansed immediately and this is where I come to an exciting point. Understand this that we might be afraid, unable and tired to face our problem much less to overcome it but I want you to know this that the bible says here in verse 41 that Jesus was move with compassion towards the LEPER and let's think for a moment OK. The leper is a non-christian and Jesus was move with compassion towards him so how much more will JESUS be move by His own sons and daughters. What I'm trying to tell you is this that despite all your flaws and shortcomings, Jesus is still moved with compassion and loves you the same. His love never changes be it in good times or bad times HE IS FAITHFUL. So my dear brothers and sister I want to encourage you to begin stretching your hand towards Jesus and let Him heal you of your leprosy come on cause if He can do it for me surely He will do it to you cause we are all human that are the same with weaknesses.

3) In verse 43-45 we see that Jesus asked the ex-leper to go show himself to the priest however the man did not and went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the matter. So you see here that we are also like this ex-leper, after we receive our blessings, gifts, talents, healing and breakthrough we taint to forget God and continue doing our own thing or maybe for some of us we praise God for awhile and then we place God back into a dark corner of your shelf and only take Him out again when we need Him. Let's learn to praise God always in good times and bad times. Giving God thanks would always help us to overcome our problems because we have learned to cast our problems to Jesus and depend on Him. So don't leave God on your smelly, dirty and old shelf any longer it's time to take Him out and walk this life with Him because it's going to be fun, it's an adventure

So hope you learn something from this because I also don't know where I'm going I'm just sharing what's on my heart so hope it inspire, encourage and taught you something. Love you deep deep.

Jeremy

Live for nothing or die for something?