Luke 5:12-16 :

It happened, while he was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man full of leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell on his face, and begged him, saying, “Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean.”

He stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, “I want to. Be made clean.”

Immediately the leprosy left him. He commanded him to tell no one, “But go your way, and show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing according to what Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.” But the report concerning him spread much more, and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. But he withdrew himself into the desert, and prayed.

Jesus is the most powerful person that ever lived on earth because not only did He have powers, He created it the earth itself. When a man has just a fraction of that kind of power, he tends to start to become arrogant and self-focused. This is an amazing part of Jesus’ life where He came to what many people in that day would call the lowest of humanity. Leprosy causes your body parts to fall off and it makes you look very bad. Not only that, it was well known in Israel that God used leprosy to expose evil in a person, which was kind of like wearing a scarlet letter or having to wear prison clothing in public.

This man came to Jesus believing that even though He was a sinner, Jesus would forgive Him and heal His body. Now, we are all sinners and even though we don’t see our disease on the outside, it is still true. What Jesus answered to this man applies to us also. This man asked if Jesus wanted to heal him believing that He could if He wanted to. Jesus answers with these precious words “I want to. Be made clean.” That is what we all need to hear because we can’t change our own condition. We need Jesus to forgive our sin and give us strength to do what’s right.

I also want to note that Jesus was not a crowd pleaser and we shouldn’t be either, “But he withdrew himself into the desert, and prayed” and we should too. We are to take time out of our day no matter how much people want us to do things for them or no matter how successful we are. We need to pray and we may need to tell the crowds to go away. If they won’t we need to get away and follow Jesus’ example. If it means that the crowd leaves us, so be it. Jesus deserves our time and our praise more than anyone else in the world.

Let’s not fail to obey His commands or else we may find ourselves hurting again.