The Leper Begged
Luke 5:12 is talking about a leper, who "when he saw Jesus he fell with his face to the ground and begged him".
I almost missed that word begged. I almost went straight past it, but it caught my eye and it really stopped me in my tracks. He begged.
Desperate for Change
Now, most people don't like to beg. It's a loss of dignity, in our eyes. The worst way to belittle somebody is to make them beg. But Jesus didn't make this man beg. Jesus didn't tower over him and say "kiss my feet!" This was the leprous man's own initiative. He saw Jesus and in desperation thought "I cannot let this man leave without cleansing me."
This reminds me of Jacob in the Old Testament. Jacob at one point begins wrestling with an unknown man. All night long they wrestle, until we read: "Then the man said, 'Let me go, for it is daybreak.' But Jacob replied, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.'" (Genesis 32:26) And we learn later on that this was God in the flesh who he wrestled.
I will not let you go until you bless me. For the leper, he didn't try to wrestle with Jesus! But in a sense he was saying the same thing: I will not let You go until You cleanse me.
Burden of Sin
I wonder if we are desperate enough to be rid of our 'leprosy'. Or if we have become comfortable with it and begun to make peace with it.
John Owen said, "I do not understand how a man can be a true believer in whom sin is not the greatest burden, sorrow and trouble." I wonder if we have stopped seeing our 'leprosy' as the greatest burden, sorrow, and trouble.
Perhaps for so long you have lived with your sin and not been able to change that you just now think that's part of my life. I'll never be rid of it. And so I won't even ask for change. I'll make peace with my sin. I'll go easy on myself. And so on you go. And you never really ask God to change you anymore, you just ask Him to forgive you, so you can go out and do it again.
"As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly," we read earlier this week from the Proverbs. I‘ve been there. Until I learned that Jesus in His grace offered me more than just forgiveness for the leprous wounds I had gotten comfortable with, but He offered me freedom from them.
Open to Transformation
Do you need to come before God today and beg for this? And again, it's not like God is saying "I will change you if you beg like a dog". No. But it is in the desperation that we find we will open ourselves up to God. It is when we are desperate for Him and for change that we will come close enough to Him for change!
Friends, don’t watch Jesus pass by, thinking “I'll just stick with my leprosy! I'll just make peace with my darkness!” God is saying, “accept that you are full of leprosy, but don't accept that that's how you will stay! Let Me cleanse you! Let Me make you new! Let Me change you!”
Because while God loves you just as you are, He refuses to leave you that way.
