Thursday, January 3, 2013

SIH’s Think On These Things: Healing 10 Lepers

The next miracle in our series is healing the man with dropsy …This miracle is recorded for us in Luke 17:11-19



The events surrounding the miracle are described as… “And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:  And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.  And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.”   In those days, the priests were the ones given authority to determine if leprosy had infected an individual. (Lev 13:1-46).  According to this account, the Lord sent these men to be inspected by the priests BEFORE the leprosy had been healed…“ as they went, they were cleansed”. 



For these men to begin their journey to see the priests took an incredible amount of faith.  They would have begun their trip to see the priests, without noticing any difference in the symptoms of their illness.  But as they traveled, they began to see the leprosy clear as the miracle took place.  What joy they must have experienced!



As the miracle came to completion, we find that only 1 out of the 10 men who were healed, returned to Christ, worshipping Him and glorifying God… “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.”   Incredible unmerited favor shown by Christ is displayed in two main ways:

  1. The healing of the leprosy was not deserved by any of the ten men.
  2. At least one of those who were healed was a Samaritan, who was looked upon by Jews as ceremonially unclean and foreigners (John 4:9) and were considered by Gentiles to be of low social status. Samaritans (descendants of Jews who intermarried with Gentiles) were looked down upon as being on one of the lowest rungs of society, who were rejected by both Jews and Gentiles as being “half breeds”. 



Are we willing to show love to those who are rejected by others?  Would we face ridicule for the sake of helping those who are considered inferior to others? This is the example that Christ has set for us.



Finally, notice that the one man that returned to Christ in appreciation was the healed Samaritan … “There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.” The obvious question that comes to mind is “Why, did the Samaritan return and the others did not?” The Bible does not answer this question, but, could it be that the Samaritan recognized how exceeding gracious the Lord was to him (as one who was rejected by all)?  Did the Jews take their healing for granted thinking that they “deserved” it being citizens of Israel?  We cannot know for sure, but I believe this is a possibility. 



If this is so, the basic principle is this… the more we understand God’s gracious workings in our lives, the more we appreciate Him.  This appreciation then increases our desire to honor and glorify Him through service.  It is for this very reason that one of the greatest goals of the SIH ministries is to help Christians understand the great grace that God has bestowed upon each one of us motivating us to greater service and glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Let each of us take a moment to consider all of His gracious acts on our behalf and humble ourselves before Him as an act of thankfulness for all He has done.



May the Lord bless each one of us as we “Think On These Things”.






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