Tuesday 11 October 2016

How are you going?



Jesus saw ten people, together, with Leprosy who asked Him to have pity on them.
“When he saw them, he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.”
Luke 17:14 NIVUK
http://bible.com/113/luk.17.14.nivuk

With God it is so often in the 'as we are going' that stuff happens.

Although we may agree with this based on our knowledge of many examples from scripture there are implications for our own lives that may well keep this as theoretical knowledge rather than life changing encounters with Jesus.

In this story, these ten people all met Jesus and they heard Him - but that is not where there lives were changed. It is only as they obeyed and set off on the journey that they were healed.

How often, when we ask Jesus something and His reply asks something of us or require us to set off doing something new or going somewhere, do we hang around waiting for further 'confirmation'? 
The confirmation, and consequent blessing, so often comes in the doing or the going, not in the hanging around waiting for Him to confirm what He has already made clear. When we do this it may genuinely be a caution on our part or it may be a way of spiritualising our reluctance or fear of 'doing what Jesus says'

There is also a twist in this particular tale. 
Of the 10 , all of whom were 'cleansed' only one returned to give thanks to Jesus.

The cleansing they received was a physical healing that enabled them to return to normal life , in community, after the priests had pronounced them 'clean' - that's pretty amazing in itself. However, when one of them returned to acknowledge Gods activity in his life and give thanks he received far more than 'just' physical healing. He was made whole - given a deep new experience of God and life - this did not just change his physical condition it changed his whole relationship with God. He exercised faith and he acknowledged God in thanksgiving. These two elements brought physical healing AND wholeness.  

“Then he said to him, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.’”
Luke 17:19 NIVUK
http://bible.com/113/luk.17.19.nivuk

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