The Daily Word

 

When Jesus was on earth, He performed many miracles, many of which are recorded in the Gospels. Whilst not wanting to be criticised as corrupting God’s Word, the Apostle John tells us that there were many other miraculous works that Jesus did which are not recorded in the 4 Gospels, so I believe there were miracles that Jesus did that are not described in the Gospels.

Some of the miracles involved inanimate subjects, e.g. the weather and food but many of these miracles were actually performed on people, from raising of the dead to driving out evil spirits. In and amongst those miracles were the ones that restored health to people, particularly leprosy.

Back in the Old Testament, God had declared some diseases, including leprosy, as ‘unclean’ and they had to live outside of normal society so that they did not make anyone else ceremonially unclean. When such a disease or illness was cured in a person, before he/she could be received back into normal society, he/she had to show themselves to the priest who then approved of that person being ‘clean’ enough to be received back among other people. And in Luke 8 we have that instruction from Jesus to a healed man, “Go and show how great things God has done for you”.

In spiritual terms, this type of disease is likened to sin, and when we accept Jesus as our Saviour, that sin disease is forgiven or cured, at least from punishment, but that same instruction given to that man so many years ago applies to us in terms of us telling others what great spiritual things God has done for us in saving us from sin’s punishment, which we rightly deserved, but which Jesus bore for us when dying on the cross. We are called to serve God, and part of that service is to tell people just what God has done for us.

Article written by Brian Preston, Elder @SFGH Church