A Clean Leper

I've always had a picture of leprosy as being unclean. We've all heard the stories of Jesus healing the lepers who lived outside their communities, and the Old Testament tells us the stories of two different men who had leprosy.

Naaman was captain of King Aram's army. He was victorious in battle but he had leprosy. Thanks to his captured Israelite servant girl's prodding, he traveled to Israel, met with Elisha, was OBEDIENT to Father's word through Elisha, dipped into the Jordan River seven times and was cured.

Another man, King Uzziah, became king of Israel when he was sixteen years old. He reigned for fifty-two years and the Bible says, "He continued to seek God in the days of Zechariah. As long as he sought the Lord, God prospered him" (2 Chronicles 26:5). But King Uzziah became proud in his God-given strength and prosperity and sinned against the Lord. As a consequence of his sin, he was struck with leprosy and quarantined for the rest of his life.

Today's Bible reading, Leviticus 13, gave me new insight into being unclean in the sight of the Lord. Verses 12-14 says, "If the leprosy breaks out farther on the skin, and the leprosy covers all the skin of him who has the infection from his head even to his feet, as far as the priest can see, then the priest shall look, and behold, if the leprosy has covered all his body, he shall pronounce clean him who has the infection; it has all turned white and he is clean. But whenever raw flesh appears on him, he shall be unclean."

I think this is a powerful testimony of our redemption as sinners through Jesus Christ! So many of us believe our past sins define us in His eyes. Whatever that sin was, it has become part of us - our persona. We carry the memories and consequences and it covers our bodies! But Jesus' blood causes our leprosy - our sin - to become white as snow.

His one requirement is that we do not have raw flesh on us, that we not continue in the sin. If we are obedient as Naaman was, we will be clean even as we are still covered in our sin. If we become prideful as King Uzziah was, we will be separated from Father as we allow raw flesh (sin) to overtake us.

Father does not require us to be perfect and clean and non-leprous to approach Him for forgiveness. In fact, He wants us to come to Him in our fully-covered state, allow Him to declare us clean, and then spread the word of His power in cleaning us to others we come in contact with.

What an amazing testimony we have - we are CLEAN LEPERS, covered in past sin, which has become white with His blood, and cleaned by His declaration of LOVE on the cross.