Made Whole

 Luke 17:12-19

Ten lepers were desperate for healing.  All were healed but only one came back to praise and worship God for this miracle.  Sound familiar? 

I knew a man with really bad cancer.  He was prayed over and prayed over and he knew it.  Miraculously, he went into remission.  In a celebratory dinner for this miracle, the man took credit for it, talking as if as if he had done it all himself out of his macho personal strength.  Cancer came back with a vengeance in short order and all the personal bravado couldn't save him.  

The body is just the body and it is finite.  No matter how many times we have healing miracles, we will all die.  But healing  physically will not necessarily make  you whole.  Real healing is infinite.

The leper who turned back, glorified God "with a loud voice."  He fell on his face and gave thanks. His life had been given back to him and He had been made whole.  He wasn't  just healed physically to a later death, he was made complete in Jesus. He was made whole.  

So much of this speaks to today.  Like the nine who took the gift and didn't return, we want  the blessings of God without the commitment, without the sacrifice.  We want to give only lip service  to Jesus with a watered down, half hearted  faith.  Let us praise Him openly, loudly, for all He has done, and let  us live out the faith that Jesus  may make us  whole.


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