Healing for Spiritual Leprosy

When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Matthew 8:1-3


I don’t know how many times I’ve read this account of Jesus healing the leper and I can’t remember when I’ve read it and didn’t see it as God’s way of showing us His healing power. A couple of days ago I read this passage and received something else from this word. We all know that everyday God reveals something in His word and Monday night when I was reading this passage, I not only saw God’s healing power but also God’s saving power through the blood of Jesus. I will explain – how many of us know what leprosy is? We probably all have an idea of what it is from the biblical accounts and anybody who’s studied medicine knows what it is in the medical field. Leprosy is a disease that attacks the flesh and the nervous system. Lepers as they were called in the Bible had no sense of feeling in some parts of their bodies, the skin would ulcerate, and the flesh would rot. In biblical times lepers were considered outcasts, they could not live among the people because they were considered unclean, apart from the fact that it is contagious. These people lived in parts of the city or country designated for lepers; most of the time they had to beg to survive because they could not work, and they could not live with their families. So what am I getting at? From the saving perspective, I reflected on what the soul looks like when we come to Jesus. Our souls were rotting, our hearts had no feeling, our minds, emotions, hearts, and souls were ulcerated. And one day someone told us that we could be healed, we could be saved, we could be saved through Jesus Christ and our leprosy would be healed. When we come to Jesus and receive Him in our hearts we are saying Lord if you will, you can make me clean. And He will say I will, and come in and make us new. But there’s another thing I understood from these verses. Sometimes we become spiritually sick. We get caught up in things, people hurt us and we don’t give it up completely to the Lord, or there are issues within us that we are not necessarily aware of or ignore and they cause us to be stagnant or stuck in one place with no growth. This is a form of spiritual leprosy. The spirit is ulcerated and if we don’t ask the Lord for healing or allow Him to heal us, our spirits lose the nerve endings that cause us to feel and our hearts grow cold and hard and soon it reflects on the outside and we begin to rot from spiritual leprosy. But Jesus is still the Healer of our souls, spirits, bodies, and mind! If we ask Him, He will say, I will! And He will heal that leprosy in our spirits and make us whole! Praise God for He is awesome! At first I only saw the aspect of when we first come to Christ full of sin, but even when we walk with Christ, anytime there is a foothold for the enemy to grab on to and there is room for sin we are in danger of spiritual leprosy. Let us guard our hearts from unforgiveness, envy, pride and other things that can desensitize our hearts and make us spiritual lepers. Don’t let things said or done to you penetrate your heart to where a root of bitterness can grow. Always give it to Jesus who restores all things and heals us completely and makes us whole.