The Healing of the Man with Leprosy

Picture this: For as long as you remember, you have lived as a social pariah, an outcast. You live in a leper colony along with many others who have also been excommunicated on account of their illness.You have lost your identity as a person and have to stay covered and call out “unclean, unclean” so that others don’t come near you.

This was the plight of the man who met Jesus and tentatively asked Him if He was willing to make him clean. Jesus didn’t just say He was willing, but closed the distance between them by touching him. In two words, “be clean,” Jesus healed him and sent him to the priest to offer a gift as thanksgiving in order to be a testimony.

Only Jesus can perform a miracle that transforms someone’s identity and social standing in a minute and the restoration that he brings requires of us only one thing - to be a testimony to a watching world.

Maybe you have felt like an outcast because of your circumstances or an illness. When you put your trust in Jesus, He calls you His own. Your identity changes from an outsider to an insider. Better yet, you are now a child of God. Your father is proud of you and ushers you into the kingdom of His son Jesus, where you are an heir to all that the kingdom offers.

What a shift!

All because you took a chance to ask Jesus if He would be willing to clean you from sin. Everything changed when you were saved. Now you can go and be a testimony to all the world.