We Believe

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

WE BELIEVE

Mark 1:43-45

43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 "See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them."  45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

NIV

Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. At least those are some of the words to that song, but this leper had not heard that song, but surely may have been the inspiration for it. How can you be silent when Jesus has just healed you from the worst disease known to mankind? Sure he was disobedient not doing what Jesus had told him to, but he was healed, he was free of that horrible disease along with the terrible stigma associated with it. He could reenter society, he could hung his children, his wife and sit down and have a drink with his old friends telling the story of how Jesus reached out and touch him, while he was still a leper. How could he not tell everyone? How could he not go tell it on the mountain? There is nothing like a firsthand account of a miraculous healing to get people all stirred up to go find Jesus. Some false teachers know that full well, making a big show of healing people, or at least making it look like they heal people, in order to gather large crowds so as to have a bigger offering pot. But a real healing by the power of Jesus will in fact, or should, be a huge reason to go tell it on the mountain and to go tell it everywhere. But where are the testimonies? Some of us have had miraculous healings by the power of Jesus’s name. Some of us have told them over and over again, but still they seem to fall on deaf ears, or stone hearts. Maybe it is disbelief, maybe people actually have to see a leper cleansed, an amputee grow a limb, or a signed affidavit from a doctor that a disease was cured without medical intervention. Maybe that is what Jesus wanted that leper to do, but it was not necessary for all the people to seek Jesus. All they needed was to hear and see someone they knew was a leper now clean.  What we need to do is keep talking, keep giving our testimony after we first come to Jesus and ask, “If you are willing”. We need to know the healing power of Jesus’s name. We need to believe Jesus does heal, as that leper did. We cannot be distracted by what we see or feel, we need to act on what we believe.  Jesus heals.