The Touch of Love

(Matthew 8:1-3) “When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before Him and said, “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!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.”

According to custom a leper had to live outside the city and when others came near he had to cry, “unclean.” To have to live through that must be very humbling and humiliating and one could only imagine how he must have longed for human touch. To live in this state for any amount of time it must have made him feel unworthy and most certainly unworthy of our Lord Jesus Christ. But God! He is love and love personified!

(I John 4:16) “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

The leper in the story must have been near enough to hear Jesus preach because it says, When Jesus came down from the mountainside…….A man with leprosy came and knelt down before Him.” He must have heard the Master preach and to be in His presence now without seeing Him or hearing Him audibly speak I am melted; imagine being there in person. To hear Him you would know, this Man is sent from above. “No one comes to the Father unless he is drawn.” The glory of God that is on our Lord could not help but draw this leper for that is why Jesus came,

(Luke 19:10) “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."

So the leper comes as He sees Jesus come down from the mountainside; and in the presence of the Lord you seem to lose yourself and forget all surroundings. The only thing that is important is Jesus and being near Him and worshiping Him. You forget the people around you and it is as if the only people around are you and Jesus. This must have been the situation with the leper; he is lost in the glory of God and goes up to Jesus forgetting his current condition and all the rules that apply and asks, Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”

Can we for a moment just forget our past, the people that hurt us and made us feel worthless and just come as the leper did; just come to the One who would still come and still die if you were the only one on earth for it says in the Word that, “even the very hairs on your head are numbered.” That my friend is true unconditional love! Just come and keel at His feet and ask; just as the leper did. He forgot for a moment, long enough to ask the One who could save him and heal him. Forget the pain and ask Jesus to heal you, to forgive you, to heal your broken heart and remove any bitterness and resentment or unforgiveness and make you whole. He is willing.

The leper did not doubt that Jesus could; in his current state he felt most unworthy. He doubted that Jesus would for he asked, “if You are willing;” he thought that little of himself. Jesus knows our hearts and He knows just what we need and more than the healing of his physical state, he needed emotional healing. His spirit needed healed; he needed to feel human again and oh, the love of God!! Jesus did what was against the rules! Jesus touched him! It was not just a physical touch; it was a spiritual and an emotional touch! He made him feel human and valued! Oh, to be touched by Jesus Christ! At that moment he was healed inside and out.

Whatever the need, spiritual, emotional or physical, just come! Hold out your heart to the One who died for you. You are loved that much! Hold out your heart; repent and ask for forgiveness and ask for your healing and trust the One who cares about your spirit and soul.

(I John 3:1-3) “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.”