March 8
‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ Matthew 15:8,9
Bible reading: Luke 17:11-19 (Go to the Bible passage)
‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!’ said the ten men who had leprosy, and throughout the centuries, millions have said it after them. But so often we leave it at that cry of desperation, and so little do we expect an answer from heaven. The lepers cried for mercy and Jesus saw them and said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’
When we call upon Jesus in faith and also look forward to His compassion, we may receive an equally wonderful answer as these ten men received. When Jesus told the ten lepers to go and see the priests, they knew that they could only show themselves to the priest if they had been cured of their leprosy, for so it is written in the law (Leviticus 14:3).
Jesus thus ordered them to show themselves to the priests - to be pronounced clean - while they were still diseased! For we read that they were only cleansed when they went on their way to the temple. They believed the word of Jesus and they went on their way while nothing showed of their cure as yet. This was an act of faith on the part of these lepers, and by faith in the word of Jesus their healing came to pass.
How little is, actually, to be seen of our relationship of faith with Jesus. Often there is more evidence of a doctrine of faith than of a relationship of faith. Doctrine always adapts itself to the experience of faith that then substitutes the genuine relationship with the living Lord.
As long as our acquired doctrine of faith is more important to us than the genuine relationship with Jesus, the wisdom of this world will impress us more than Jesus' word of authority that can heal both body and soul.

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