ICS Daily Devotions
Focus on Jesus
Luke 17:11-16, 19 (NKJV) Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan… And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”
One of the greatest concerns during the current Coronavirus outbreak is the absence of an anti-viral treatment. In post-modernism, we have placed so much hope in our intellectual abilities and the advancement of medical science that we have ignored or even rationalised away the supernatural power of God. However, it is precisely at times like these, when all else has failed, that we should rethink about the healing power of God and place our faith in Him.
We live in a broken world. While God is good, there is an enemy, the devil, who wants to kill, steal and destroy us. God is not the source of a virus outbreak, but it is the fallen nature of man that has created the chaos.
The opening passage illustrates an equally hopeless situation in the Bible, where there was no cure for leprosy and because the disease was contagious, the 10 lepers were separated from and forbidden to have any contact with other people including their relatives. Considered unclean and untouchable, there was no hope for them, and they were basically waiting to die.
The people of Israel are God’s covenant people with a rich history God’s faithfulness to them, including the protection of their forefathers in Egypt and healing in the wilderness. The one leper who was a Samaritan was ignorant of the covenant, foreign to it, and living a life without hope and without God in this world, but fortunately, he was placed in the same camp as the Jews. Nevertheless, all of them were faced with a hopeless situation unless something supernatural happened. However, they saw hope when they heard that Jesus was passing through the village!
Similarly, Jesus is the one we should look to, just like the lepers of those days who had no cure for their disease.
Sermon Series: Focus on Jesus
