"I Am Willing"

Mark 1:41
"Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, "I am willing; be cleansed.""

I just broke with a ten-year practice right here. I think that this is the first time I have used something other than the King James Version for the Fred List entry. This is the New King James Version, and I did not alter any words in it.

I have to give credit for today's entry to Jackson of the music group Apologetix [http://www.apologetix.com/store/store.php]. They take secular songs and they re-verse them. They write Christian verses to the music. They redeem the music I grew up loving. He sent me their newest song, Lonesome Leper, and he cited this verse for his lyrics. As I read it, God spoke to me and said, "This is the message people need to hear today." So here it is.

This is Mark's account of a leper coming to Jesus and asking Jesus to heal him. The leper said, "If You are willing, You can make me clean."

I want to focus on this comment, "If You are willing." We do not fully understand the compassion of God. I think that because we do not understand the compassion of God, we do not come to God when we should.
So many times we do not come to God until there is no place left for us to go. We have suffered as much as we can. This poor leper had lost everything. Being a leper he was unclean. He could not live with his family. He could not visit his friends. He could not touch anyone, hug anyone or kiss anyone. He could not go to the Temple – sounds a lot like our current Pandemic.

In addition to this, he was dying. We are all dying. We all live in a body that is slowly dying with us inside of it; but leprosy is worse. Your skin rots with you in it. Leprosy is a picture of sin because sin goes hand-in-hand with death. If there is sin in our lives, then we are dying. We are trapped by death.

But Jesus had compassion on us. There was no way to escape sin and death in our lives. So Jesus came and died on the cross to break the power of sin and death. He gave us an alternative to our fate. Through Him, we can now escape sin and death, and inherit eternal life in Heaven. [Wow! What a deal.]

Each of us needs to come to this point in our lives. When our life is not what we want it to be; we can come to Jesus and we can say, "Lord, if You are willing, You can change me."

I believe that when we bring our problems to Jesus, when we present our condition to Jesus and say, "If You are willing…" Jesus will smile and say, "I am willing…"

Notice what Jesus did. He touched him. Jesus did the unthinkable. He did what was forbidden. He touched the leper. Jesus was willing to be a part of him despite the risk – despite the danger. Jesus made contact with him. Jesus wants to make contact with us.

We need to understand that this desire on the part of Jesus is not just for salvation. Jesus is so much more effective in our lives than just for the one-time touch of salvation to save us. Jesus is there each and every day. Whenever we have issues, whenever we have problems; we can come to Him and say, "Lord, if You are willing…"

Jesus is willing. Jesus is ready, willing and able to help us in the daily crisis we face. He cares about us like none other. He can fix it. He can help us. He can touch us and make us feel accepted once more. He can restore what we have loss. But we need to come to Him. We need to ask. We need to bow before Him and say, "Lord, if You are willing…"

And then we can look into His face, see Him smile with all the love of God behind that smile, and hear Him say, "I am willing…" And that's when miracles happen.

--Dennis—