Month: December 2019

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:14-17 (day three)

“He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”

Jesus never staged mass healings in which scores of anonymous people received health simultaneously and went happily on their way. Jesus’s pattern was to listen in rapt attention to individual persons as they or their loved ones described the suffering and misery disease had wrought in their bodies. The one time a person with illness attempted to remain unnoticed, Jesus stopped everything until he had looked on the face of the newly-healed one and heard her story. His touch healed her body; his attention healed her spirit. He will not leave a well body with a broken spirit. He will not redeem a spirit and leave a body moldering in the grave. He is the Savior of the entire person.

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:14-17 (day two)

He touched her hand…vs. 15a …and He cast out the spirits with a word. 16b

With a touch and a word Jesus made a difference. We may not have Jesus healing abilities, but we surely have the ability to spend time with someone who is in need of comfort. Surely we have a word of kindness for one experiencing grief, loss, or pain. Jesus spent much of his ministry teaching us to identify our neighbors. He doesn’t ask us to cure cancer. He asks as to show love as we have been loved. To show mercy as we have been shown mercy. Sometimes the path to complete restoration can begin with a touch and a word.

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:1-4 (day seven)

“When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him.”

Very shortly before this, Jesus spoke these words on top of the mountain, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

The leper heard these words of Jesus. He was listening intently. He then sought obediently, approached reverently, and asked boldly just as Jesus had said. This man had faith.

For Jesus, here is a grand opportunity for Him to teach a lesson. He was very strategic in who He healed and when He healed. This was a time for Him to show the masses who were following closely behind these things:

1) He is who He says He is.

2) You can trust that His promises are true.

3) Faith in Him is where the miracle begins.

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:1-4 (day six)

There was far more at stake than his health. The leper went to great lengths to encounter Jesus. Hearing him teaching from afar, he was enamored with the authority in which he spoke, unlike any he had heard before. But the stories of healings, of men and women not unlike himself, were what set him on this path.

There is no telling how many years this man had been separated from his family and community because he was unclean. Perhaps no one had touched him in an equal amount of time. His wife, his children, his rabbi, no one could come near; banished to the outskirts of town. His skin, yes, needed healing, but much more he needed to be restored back to fellowship; he needed to belong again.

He was desperate to be clean, to be known.

And Jesus touched him.

“Be clean,” he said.

And what once was distant and separate was restored.

That’s what the kingdom of God is like.

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:1-4 (day five) “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed.”  As we look at Jesus’ encounters with the leper and the centurion, we see great faith being displayed by each of them. But don’t miss their testimony.  In both of their statements, there are known and unknown statements about Jesus. The unknown- Jesus’ willingness to heal.  The known- His power, His capability, His authority, His majesty and sovereignty. What is it that you know about Jesus?  What have you already experienced and encountered?  Will you preach to yourself those Gospel truths?  (The goodness and greatness of Jesus)
“Preaching the gospel to ourselves is a habit of grace that is both proactive and reactive. It’s reactive as we encounter temptation and frustration and seek to restock in the moment… But it’s also proactive. We go on the offensive when we feed our souls in some regular rhythm before the events and tasks and disappointments of daily life begin streaming our way.”

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:1-4 (day four)

As Jesus came down from the mountain, He was met by a humble leper.  The leper demonstrated some unusual qualities.  Whatever Jesus chose to do, this leper was willing to accept.  Sounds like three other men in Scripture…Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael.  These three friends of Daniel’s were going to be thrown into a fiery furnace unless they bowed to worship king Nebuchadnezzar’s gods.  In Daniel 3:17-18, these men said, “…our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, …but even if He does not, let it be known to you O king, that we are not going to serve your gods…”

Do we have such faith?  Are we willing to follow Christ, even if we don’t get what we want?  Do we demand the ‘correct’ answer to our prayers?  May our faith match that of Daniel’s friends and of this leper…whatever your will is, Lord, I accept it!

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:1-4 (day three)

“Go, show yourself to the priest.”

Your body is intricately connected to your spiritual well-being. This must be affirmed, especially against the tendency to think that valuing the “inside” means devaluing the “outside”. Such reasoning is disastrous. When the body is thought of as having little value, people will violate others’ bodies with abandon. The resulting pain in the human race is staggering: body-image issues which devastate a person, human trafficking, abuses of power, unchecked disease, and more. God values the body so much that one day he will raise it from the dead. Accordingly, Jesus told the man whose body he healed that the only way to understand his healing and to nurture his body is to steward it within the community of those who will help him remember how fearfully and wonderfully he is made.

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:1-4 (day two) 

 And Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

Make no mistake, Jesus came to change the world. This insurgency, however, was not going to be hung up on a gospel of miracles. The true miracle is a surrendered heart that is ready to worship Jesus regardless of what would happen next. Jesus sends this healed man to worship as was the custom. Yes it was incredible. Yes it was a miracle, but Jesus was more concerned with a heart ready to continue in the faith and serve as the Spirit will lead. Is this your testimony.