Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him. Luke 5:13 Shame is a leprosy of the soul and it is the consequence of sin. Shame is the voice that screams loudly to convince us we are unlovable and we therefore need to cover our true self and show a false self. Shame coerces us to give an image of someone we are not in order to be loved. It is the voice that tells us I am wrong and I am toxic. Unfortunately many of us Christians, forgiven and adopted into the family of God, are defeated by toxic shame. Regardless of the image we project outwardly to others, we live lonely lives because we are isolated from God as well as others. Our fear of being really known and therefore rejected, controls our daily interactions with God and others. Like lepers, we are tortured with toxic shame and feel unclean. We believe the best place to go is to the leper colony where we will never feel the warm touch of someone who can truly love us. This is what we really deserve and it is the punishment we need to accept for ourselves. After all, who could really love us given our brokenness? Then along comes Jesus. The Holy One who is so clean and yet so loving. We long for His touch! Our heart longs for someone like Him to embrace us yet we believe the cultural rules must be obeyed; the clean should never touch unclean lepers. However, when Jesus approaches us He seems willing to break the rules in order to make us whole. When we cry out, He comes toward us. Our hearts begin beating harder with the anticipation of what it must be like to experience true love for the first time. We know He sees our leprosy (shame) yet His eyes are filled with compassion rather than disgust. How can this be? We long for just one touch and as He stretches out His hand we hope against all odds we can REALLY experience His love. Then it happens. His warm, calloused hand touches ours and we feel flesh on flesh. When Jesus touches us we feel the compassion and love that we saw in His eyes and the shame melts away. We look up and when we gaze into His eyes we realize we have been touched by the very hand of God and it is in that moment we learn by experience that GRACE trumps shame! We actually experience the forgiveness that has been ours from the moment we confessed and repented. We have now experienced what justification is all about. Our only response is worship! The wonder of it all! In awe of Jesus Christ our posture is one of humble adoration. Our real heart desires have been satisfied. The stuff of this world now feels so superficial and empty. We cant help but passionately pursue Jesus. We dont even think about what we are leaving behind as we pursue Him because what we have to gain is so much greater! We are now on an adventure that is beyond our dreams and when we look in the mirror we begin to realize how much the person we see in the reflection resembles Jesus. Are you ready to find healing for your shame? The beautiful thing in all of Scripture is that Jesus touched the unclean. When He touches us EVERYTHING changes!
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 02:21:56 +0000
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