T H E O P H I L U S

11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Luke 17:11-19

As we start a new day for a new week, there is something we all need to reflect upon whenever we come upon such a regular occasion. Am I truly thankful for the blessing of being able to go to school, to work, or even simply just to be breathing and alive?

In this passage there are ten men who had leprosy, but also ten men who were healed. Quite interestingly this account of Jesus healing leprosy is quite different from the one in chapter 5 of Luke. Jesus touches the man in that passage, but here, we notice that Jesus tells them to “go”. Jesus heals from a distance. In this case Jesus calls on them to have faith, and to walk in faith. They are told by Jesus to go show themselves to the priests. But how? how does one go and show themselves to the priests when they are considered unclean? The leprous men were so used to being rejected by priests that they ask Jesus for pity, thinking that they too would be rejected by him. But instead he tells them to do something out of faith – go see the priests that rejected them. But how many noticed they were healed along the way? Nine of them may have likely went looking for the priests but may not have even noticed they were healed. But the one man, who was not even a Jew but a Samaritan was the one who noticed, and he immediately came directly back to Jesus to thank him and praise him.

Many of us walk daily life as if it is something that we earned on our own, and that all the outcomes of life our made by our own ambitions. There are even times we have asked God to carry out a request in our lives and have even verbally surrendered to his grace and mercy. But yet because we could not perceive the nature of God’s timing, and have had expectations of our own we were not able to notice the blessings that have come along the way of our journey of life with him. We are busy looking for results, and the answers in our way, rather than in God’s way. We are often concerned about the outcome of the quest rather than the journey of experience that comes along with it.

Faith requires of us that we recognize God who seems far away but is really near to us. We ought to recognize the gifts that God has given us on the course of the journey of life rather than the endgame results as our primary pursuit. Without Jesus, the prize could not be won. Jesus is the one who makes us presentable before the Father, and is the one who sanctifies us and justifies us. Today, allow him to work in you in your walk of faith daily.