As we continue the journey at the feet of Jesus, I want to say that I am so glad you are joining me and I am really getting some different perspectives and I hope you are, too.

On the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” Luke 17:11-19 ESV

I hope you caught in the middle of the story, the one man that came back and fell on his face at the feet of Jesus.

This is such a fantastic story. If you are a skimmer, go back and read it. It speaks volumes of Jesus’ character!

I would like to point out several things before we move on to the heart of the issue.

                  1. Anyone with leprosy, according to the law, had to remain at a distance from the town. They were outcasts. Reduced to living on the roadways.

The heart in this story really begins here. Then when one of them saw that he was healed, he turned back.

Why didn’t the others turn back? That is what Jesus wanted to know.

Where there, not nine others? Yet this foreigner, the one who was rejected in many ways, turned back.

What does it mean that he turned back? In noticing that he was healed. It changed him. He not only looked at Christ as a teacher or master, He looked at Him as Lord.

How do we know this? In Jesus’ reply to this man, He said, your faith has made you well.

What was the difference between this man and the nine others? His faith.

Last week we looked at a story of a father whose faith moved him from fear to the hope that only comes from Christ.

This week we see a man whose faith leads him to gratitude and completeness. Notice he fell on his face and thanked the Lord.

I know I have thanked the Lord many times for things He has done for me or through me both big and small, but I don’t know when I have been so overwhelmed with gratitude that I have fallen to my face.

That breaks my heart. Christ did the same thing for me that He did for this foreigner. He healed my heart. My heart that was so full of disease and leprosy. I should have been left on the side of the road begging for mercy. But God knew my condition and in my seeking healing and forgiveness, He showed me the grace and mercy of complete healing.

Yet, I am afraid too many times, I may have been one of the other nine, who ran away to make sure I was really healed. 

I want to be like this man. I want to have this kind of fall on your face gratitude. I want to run to the feet of Jesus while telling the world, He has healed me! He has made me whole! 

I want to point out that the other nine were only physically healed. Jesus said to this man, however, “Rise and go on your way. Your faith has made you well.”

He didn’t tell the man to go to the priest for He had become this man’s High Priest (Hebrews 8:1) and Christ made Him well.

Now this man was able, with a loud voice, to praise the name of Jesus.

I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. Psalm 69:30 KJV

Praise and gratitude do two things for sure.

          It magnifies the name of Jesus. What a better way to magnify to the world that we are made complete than to praise His Great Name.

          It gives us the opportunity to find the joy, we so often seek, in a situation that is less than ideal.

Simply put – At the feet of Jesus, we bring faith and gratitude, we receive joy and the spiritual blessings that He alone offers us there.

Let us praise and rejoice the Lord in the comments, tell us one thing that you can be thankful for and take the opportunity to lift-up that gratitude to the Lord today!

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Maybe you’ve been Black Friday shopping and the stores are
so busy you can barely make it down the aisles. As your walking through the
store someone bumps into you; you go another five feet and someone runs over
your foot with their very full shopping cart and you wonder to yourself, am I
invisible, do these people not see me?

You go to a concert of a really amazing band and everyone
wants to stand up close to the stage because that is where the action is. As
the artist is singing, everyone is raising their hands in the air to try and
catch a five from the performer. You are so excited for the moment and you let
out really loud screams because then they may notice you. For a moment they
look right at you and slap your hand as they walk by and you wonder to yourself,
did they really notice me?

This is a true story. I was living in Hawaii in a semi-populated
city and I was walking down the sidewalk of a pretty busy street. In my head
one side of the sidewalk is for all people going one direction and the other
side of the sidewalk is for people going in the opposite direction. I say in my
head because the person walking directly toward me did not have this same
thought pattern. I continued walking thinking this person surely sees me.
Either they are going to veer or am I going to veer. I continued walking on
what I assumed was the “correct” side of the sidewalk and this person walked
square into me. I am talking bumping bellies square into me and then continued
on their way. I literally was stopped in my tracks wondering to myself, did
that person even notice or see me?

Never been in any of these situations? I am sure you can
picture the scene. Keep that scene and that feeling in your mind as you read
today’s story. I love this story and have thought of many different ways of
writing it but when it came down to it none were better than the actual one.
This story is about a lady that showed faith but in a different way than you
may think. She has a very brief story and it is sandwiched between another
story. We are going to dig this story out so you can see how she was “noticed”.
 Let’s read the whole thing and then we
will pull out the story from verses in Luke 8:43 – 49. I love the language in this King
James Version.

First of all, I just have to point out the great need of
these two people and Jesus had time for them both.

Let’s look at what is happening here.  Jesus gets to the shore. When He gets there (look
at this word) is thronged by the people. People have been hearing great things
about Jesus and they are so glad that he is there and they just throng Him.
They want to be so close to Him they are pressing against Him. Remember
earlier, I said keep in mind these crowded places you may have been. This is
the scene. They are pressing against Him.

A ruler of the synagogue, someone well-to-do and was held in
high regard in his community, comes up to Jesus and begs at His feet to come to
his house. His only daughter is about to die. What do you think this father was
feeling?  What do you think he was
feeling as a man of His stature in society falling at the feet of Jesus? He had
obviously heard of Jesus and in his desperation and finally seeing Him, was
compelled to fall to the ground in His presence. Great story! Are you ever
compelled or driven to fall to the ground to Jesus?

Now look back at verses 43-49. And a woman… this woman had
bleeding (some version say hemorrhage) for 12 years. Men you can plug your ears
if you need to. Women I don’t know about you but I am generally complaining in
my head about the one week. Twelve years! Twelve? Can you imagine? Not only
that she had spent all of her living going to doctors hoping they could find
her a cure and verse 43 says they could not find one. Oh, are you feeling her
heart ache with me? In fact, in the book of Mark, it says that not only could
they not find one but it became worse. 
According to Levitical law she would have been considered unclean as
long as she was having bleeding, so she would have to keep herself separated
from others.

So here she was, no money, no one around, an illness that had
been with her for twelve years. Can you imagine her desperation? Can you
imagine what it must have felt like to be ostracized for something you had no
control over? For some I may be striking a chord. For some you may know exactly
what it feels like to be in a position that you have no control over and you
feel like there is no hope. Some us may feel like there is hope but we still
have had that feeling of desperation where all else has failed us, all seems to
be working against and we are trying really hard to figure out what we are
going to do next but in our desperation we feel completely lost. Now imagine
having that little tiny bit of hope show up on the shore that day.

Verse 44 says that she came up behind Jesus and touched the
border of His garment, probably one of the tassels that hung from His shawl and
immediately, immediately, her issue was stopped. She went up behind Him because
she was not supposed to be among all those people. She also must have assumed
that she could just reach up and touch His garment, maybe the garment held some
kind of healing power, and then slip out of the crowd unnoticed. This however,
was not the case.

Jesus said, “Who touched me?” Of course Peter responds, look
at all these people, they are all touching you. Jesus said, “No, I felt the
power (here the word used is healing power) go out of me.” This verse is not
implying that Jesus in any way loses power. He wants the people and more
importantly this woman to know, I just healed you and I know about you. He knows what you need and He has what you need.

Of course, this woman tries to hide in the crowd. Jesus
looks right at her, he more than notices her. Out of all the people in the
crowd, He looked right at her. He was not trying to degrade her or make her feel
belittled here. He wants her to notice, Daughter, I notice you. You can try to
blend into the crowd, you can think that you are lost in the shuffle but Jesus
says, Daughter, I notice you. When you need me, I notice you. When you try to
slink back into the crowd, I notice you.”  
Just a side note, Daughter is capitalized. So He is calling her by name. Telling her, you are more than a daughter, you are My Daughter. You are not just one of the
girls in the crowd. You are My Girl.

When the woman saw that she couldn’t hide, she came forward
trembling. She was really putting herself at risk here. She was stepping out in
public, admitting what she had done, admitting what was wrong with her and
declaring she was healed, and waiting for a reply.   

Notice what He says to her here. “Daughter, be of good
comfort. Thy faith hath made you whole. Go in peace.” I love this. Do you see
these short sentences that say the world to this woman. First of all, He calls
her Daughter. She is His child and He is talking tenderly to her. He is not
casting her out. He is not sending her away. 
He speaks lovingly to her, He calls her Daughter. Then He tells her, “Be
of good comfort.” I healed you child, your life means you will not live with this
issue anymore.

Then He tells her faith has made her whole. Although her
faith may have been little or superstitious, by thinking she could just touch
His garment, and not realizing the power to heal was in Him and not in His
clothes or an object He was wearing. She came with enough faith for Jesus to
say, now take that faith of a mustard seed and go and grow.  It was enough to make her whole. It was also
enough to make her feel whole.

I know there are times when I just
don’t feel like myself. I just think, what I would not give right now to not
feel like whoever this is. I just want to feel like my regular self again. There
have also been times in my life where I go day to day and I get swallowed up in
the circumstance and in my desperation I feel like there is no way out. Oh, how
more wrong could I be? Jesus said she was made whole. She was healed,
completely healed. He can make you whole, too. You can take that little bit of
hope or faith and bring it to His feet.

Finally, Jesus says to her, “Go In peace”. The illness she
had all those years, healed. The burdens she must have carried all those years
were gone. The desperation she must have felt, gone. The hopelessness, gone.
She had a new faith in Christ Jesus and she was made whole in Him and now He
was telling her to Go In Peace. Amazing! Beautiful!

I don’t want to downplay the other miracle that is taking
place here so pardon my briefness. I do want for us to look back to the ruler
of the synagogue. So here is their story. A servant runs up to Him and says don’t bother
Jesus you daughter has died. And Jesus responds tenderly to this man. He says, “Fear
not, believe only”. Do you need someone to tell you today to fear not? Jesus
goes to his house, asks everyone to leave, and tells the little girl to get up.
Get up; let me remind you she was dead. She however, got up, and they got her
some food, a real sign of life. She too, was made whole again.  

I read a great commentary on these verses which said that
Christ in this double miracle shows that He is Lord or both life (the woman)
and death (the young girl).

So I am going to ask you before we go, are you in need of a
little hope today? Maybe, you are in need of a lot of hope. Are you at point or
season in your life where everything has a feeling of desperation and you are
not sure which way to turn? Can you relate to this father and this woman in the
story who find themselves in the dirt looking for a miracle? Jesus showed up on
that shore on that day for a purpose and He will show up on your shore for you.
The amazing thing about God’s grace is we don’t have to go behind Him in shame
we can stand before and make our requests to Him. No matter how you come to
Him, with little faith or falling at His feet, the important thing is you go.
Go to Him. He will notice you. He will come to you tenderly and you can have assurance
that He alone has what you need.

Friend, I will pray for you. I will pray whatever it is that
you need you will be willing to bring it to the feet of Jesus and there you
will lay it down and give it to Him. With Jesus, you will never be lost in the
crowd.

Please encourage others and share this with your friends(there are social media buttons right below here).
They may be in need of the great Hope that is only offered through a
relationship with Jesus. Pray for them. Encourage others by posting comments here on this blog page to
help get your friends closer to having peace with Him. 

Thank you and Have a
great week.