Leprous Souls

Luke 5:12-13
While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him.


I can’t imagine having leprosy, can you? The smell, the sensation, the agony, the sheer hopelessness of it. There is no cure – you basically just rot away, and die. I simply cannot imagine it! And yet, each of us is born leprous, really. Leprosy of the soul – sin – is worse by far than the physical malady. It eats away at us, and yet because we generally have no physical symptoms, we simply walk around as though we are OK, all the while, we’re wasting away inside. Piece by piece our souls rot and fall away – with no cure, we just have to wait around for death.

Ah, but there is a cure – only one, if we’ll take it. The atonement and forgiveness offered us through Jesus Christ. He’s the only Way, but it’s also the best Way! I would imagine that if modern medicine were to "fix" our leprous souls, it would find a way to simply stop the damage being done, to keep the leprosy from progressing any farther. Then, it would pat itself on the back for a job well-done. Yet Christ, much like I would imagine happened with the physical lepers in His day, not only stops the disease, but also restores everything back to the way it was before the disease even set in. He replaced the hands, the noses, and the feet. And within us, He restores every piece of us that was eaten away by sin.

Isn’t that great news! He doesn’t just stop the sin from doing any more damage – He removes it completely and restores us back to a whole and complete person. His healing is perfect and complete. We should rejoice that even if Christ should choose not to heal us physically of the many complications in life, He will always heal our spiritual maladies when we come to Him and ask His healing forgiveness. And we will walk away whole again!

Discipline

Proverbs 19:18
Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death.

Proverbs 29:17
Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.


Ah yes, the discipline of a child – it can be such a testy topic, can’t it? Yet, so often, when we talk of disciplining our children, we are talking of spankings or time-outs – times when we have to "discipline" them for disobedience. We have become so narrow-minded in our thinking in regard to what this word means.

In Webster’s Dictionary there are many definitions, but there are a few that really stand out to me in this instance: "punishment inflicted by way of correction and training; training to act in accordance with rules; activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill." My Holman Bible Dictionary sheds even more light in this area, stating, "Discipline comes from a Latin word "disco" which means to learn or get to know, a direct kind of acquaintance with something or someone. Discipline refers to the process by which one learns a way of life. A disciple was like an apprentice who was learning a trade or craft from a master. Such learning required a relationship between the master who knew the way of life (discipline) and a learner (a disciple). Within this relationship, the master led a learner through a process (the discipline) until the learner could imitate or live like the master."

So, we need to be constantly disciplining our children (or grandchildren, or nieces, or nephews, or neighbors – whatever children we are around), not through punishment, although that is a necessary part of it (anyone on the receiving end of punishment from God knows this). We simply need to be in a relationship with them, living the life we want them to live, and showing them what it is to be disciplined, and a disciple of Christ. Our discipline has to go so much farther than simple time-outs and spankings. We must discipline them to pick up after themselves, to take care of the stuff God has given us to use, to be good steward of our time, money, and possessions. Discipline is an every day, every moment thing that our children are picking up from us at all times.

Let’s take this even farther to say that while we are disciplining our children, we are disciples of the Living God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and this must also be a daily, every moment thing. We are His "sons," and what more do we want than to delight the soul of our Heavenly Father! I love that the Holman Bible Dictionary tells us that discipline is a "process by which we learn a way of life." That is what we are in – process – learning the way of life Jesus lived out for us as an example. If we are to pass on any sort of discipline to our children, we must first be disciples of the only One who can bring true discipline into each of our lives, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s let God discipline us today, so that we, in relationship with those around us, can lead the way to a disciplined, peaceful life in Christ.

Any Old Bush

Exodus 3:1-6
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight-why the bush does not burn up." When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.


Can you imagine the sight? A bush, on fire, but not consumed – I think I would have wandered over to take a closer look too. Moses discovered that it was engulfed by our fiery, passionate God, and he hid his face – smart guy.

Now, imagine what kind of bush this must have been! A perfect bush, without blemish, beyond reproach, surely. It must have bloomed magnificently year after year, without fail. It must have been the cream of the crop – the creme de la creme of bushes! Only a perfect bush will do for the Lord of all creation, after-all.

Are you laughing yet? I hope so. Because in all honesty, it was probably just a bush, like every other bush, different, perhaps, but no better or no worse. The thing that made this bush stand out was not something inherent in the bush itself, but it was God in this bush. Any old bush will do – God can use any old bush.

Good thing, too, because I’m really nothing special apart from the Living God indwelling me. How about you? Feel like you’re nothing special, have nothing to offer of value or worth? Well, the good news is that it has nothing to do with you or what you have or don’t have – it has absolutely everything to do with God in you and all that He is capable of. His fiery passion can engulf us, if we’ll let it, and we will blaze in His glory, for all to see.

Really quite remarkable – God delivered His message to one of His greatest servants through a gnarly old bush. Gives me hope! How about you?

Training For Godliness

1 Timothy 4:7b-8
…train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.


Don’t we love it when we find something that is "multi-purpose"? It seems as though all of a sudden that thing is worth far more, simply because it serves more than one purpose. Now we can justify spending the time or money on said item, right?

So, then, why do we have such difficulty with godliness and the pursuit thereof? Right here in First Timothy we are told that godliness has value for all things. There is nothing in this life that will not benefit from our godliness. And truly, our Christian lives should be so rooted in godliness – in the ways of God – that it defines absolutely everything in our lives.

We have a lot of great things, these days, in our lives both in and out of church. Great programs, schools, friends, family, etc. but if all of that stuff is not rooted in the foundation of God and the pursuant godliness, then really it won’t be able to serve the full purpose in our lives that God has set forth.

You’ll notice that we are told that we need to train ourselves to be godly. It’s not as though we can wake up one day, make the decision and it’s done (although, that is a great first step). And what better way to train for godliness than time with God, in the Word, and in prayer. There is nothing that will transform us the way God can, especially when we are spending time with Him, getting to know Him. We can fill our days with programs and Bible studies, worship, fellowship and small group, but until we have laid a solid foundation of God, and His perfect truths and precepts, these other things will simply melt away into our foundations of nothing.

Let’s seek Him, pursue Him – passionately pursue Him, as I love to say, and see the benefit that the rest of our lives reap from our found Treasure. As we make Him the common denominator in all things, all things will begin to fit so much better, and we will find that godliness has become a way of life.

Chosen to Know God

Isaiah 43:10
"You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he."


We have been chosen to know the Lord. Let that sink in a little. The God of this universe – the all-powerful, mighty, perfect, sovereign God has chosen each of us to know Him! Doesn’t that just thrill you? It does me. He wants us to know Him, and to believe Him and His truths, and to understand that He is God – He is it, all we need, want, or could ever imagine – He is everything.

It washes over me that the more I learn about God the more I realize that I really don’t know much. Knowledge is one of those things that I love. I really enjoyed school – learning, and knowing stuff, even if there really was no reason to know it. So, I constantly have to remember that my search here is not for knowledge, but to know God and believe Him, and try to understand in some minute way that He is it.

It sure is humbling, isn’t it? On this search the biggest thing that continues to come up is how little I really know about this infinite God of ours. We can let it be discouraging, or we can let that remind us that there is so much more wonder to our God that He desires to reveal to us. Let’s make that choice, here, today, together – to see our lack of knowledge and understanding as an open invitation to dig a little deeper and begin to really see the glory of God revealed through the gems we discover.

Truths of God

Romans 8:3-4
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.


We try so hard to follow the "rules," don’t we? You see it all over the Old Testament – no matter how hard the Israelites tried, they could not follow the Mosaic Law, they could not keep the commandments. And in their great pride, many times they just dug themselves deeper rather than calling out to God for help, which is all they really needed to do.

The ironic thing is that as hard as we try it isn’t until we give up and finally throw up our hands, admitting defeat, admitting that we need Christ because we are not capable, that we are finally able to "keep" the commandments. It is in knowing that we can’t and accepting that we don’t have to, because Christ did, that gives us true victory – over the Law, over sin, over death, and really over our lives.

It is when we are living according to the Spirit that we are victorious. This is something that we simply need to walk in the knowledge of each and every day. It’s not something we have to strive toward, or work on, it’s simply something we need to acknowledge, and then live in the light of that truth. How many times has Satan been thrilled over something in our lives, simply because we believed his lies over the truths of God, and it affected the way we lived and behaved. See, it has nothing to do with doing the right things that makes us victorious, it has everything to do with knowing the truths of God, and simply living our lives as though we really believe they are true.

Do you believe? Well, then, let’s start living like we do!