Are You A Spiritual Leper?
Matthew 8:2&3 NIV
2 A man with leprosy
came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can
make me clean."
3 Jesus reached out
his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be
clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy.
I always thought
lepers lost their fingers and other body parts because the parts rotted
off. Not entirely correct. The parts are lost because the person has a
nerve disease that prevents them from feeling pain. Not being able to feel pain lets them injure
themselves over and over until a body part catches gangrene or is damaged
beyond the ability to heal and is lost.
I have known many
Christians who have a type of leprosy:
spiritual leprosy. They followed
their own desires and sinned and then ignored God when He tried to call them
back to Him. They kept ignoring the feelings
of remorse their conscience gave them until their hearts were so damaged that
they are beyond the ability to feel anymore.
Some have even kept damaging their heart until parts of it die and they
lose the ability to heal.
Leprosy diagnosed
in its early stages is easy to treat and control. Once one of the most feared diseases known to
mankind, now it is a rare disease requiring lifetime treatment, just like
cancer patients, heart patients, diabetes patients and others who require a
lifetime of treatment to keep well.
Spiritual leprosy
is a dangerous condition found in some Christians. First there is numbness in the heart and you
fail to respond to God’s movements in your life. Then the ears get deaf and you no longer hear
His call to you to come back to Him. You
begin to lose other spiritual aspects of your life and eventually your spirit
dies and you become hollow inside, and you no longer are capable of receiving
anything from God.
There is good news,
though! There is hope for you if the spiritual
leprosy is diagnosed early and you seek treatment. In its early stages it requires a simple dose
of prayer and seeking God and then requires a lifetime of treatment. So simple.
A prayer and a little remorse for having sinned against God and you’re
in remission and recovery.
I, like every other
Christian I have spoken to, have points of weakness in my life. There are sins I never commit because I am
not tempted by them. There are sins I do
commit because I have a weakness towards those areas. And our Adversary knows where to attack us,
and probes these spiritual weaknesses.
So we need to take our medicine regularly as a preventative
measure. Read the Bible daily and pray
often. Reading the Bible feeds your spirit
and makes you stronger and better able to resist attacks. Praying connects you to God and when you are
close to God you will be less likely to want to sin.
And never forget
the He is willing that you get well. You
just have to ask! If you suspect you
have numbness around your heart or your ears don’t hear God clearly anymore,
seek treatment immediately. If your eyes
wander and are hard to focus on the words in your Bible, seek treatment. There is no danger in taking treatment even
if you don’t have spiritual leprosy. Treatment
is not harmful to a healthy spirit and will actually help you grow.
Stephen Cram October 26,
2014
Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through
philosophy and vain deceit, following the tradition of men according to the
rudiments of the world, and not in accordance with Christ.
Visit my pastor’s blog at http://pastorjonrhinehart.blogspot.com/.
Join Pastor Jon Tuesday nights at 6:30 for Praise Chapel
TV at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/praise-chapel-tv
.
Unless otherwise noted all Scripture is from the New King
James Version of the Bible.
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