March 10, 2024

Last Sunday in my message, I talked about how God sees us. It’s so different from how most of us see ourselves. Many of us see ourselves as failures and losers or people having little to no value. God, however, sees us as TREASURES waiting to be discovered, lost souls needing to be found, and children who need to be led. His view of us is so much more redemptive than our view is. Maybe that’s because He made us. And God doesn’t make junk.
You see that in our passage today how Jesus looks at this leper. It says that Jesus was “moved with compassion.” Think about how different that was from how the leper saw himself. His mind was no doubt shaped by the fear and rejection he’d experienced with his disease. He’d been run off from every place he’d tried to go and called a thousand endless, horrible names. I would imagine that some people even told him that his disease was punishment from God.
But Jesus was “moved with compassion.” The word “compassion” is a word that means to be stirred in the deepest parts of our being. Some translators use the word “anger.” And maybe it was. Maybe when Jesus saw him and all he’d been through, a part of his feelings for the man was indeed anger. Angry at how he’d been so poorly treated. Angry at how the years had stolen his sense of worth and self-esteem. Angry at how it had bent his view of God and how loved he truly was. While others saw this man as trash to be discarded, Jesus saw him as a treasure to be discovered. Jesus’ heart broke at the deepest level for this man. It stirred His Holy Heart.
And that’s how Jesus sees YOU today. He sees you through eyes of Redemption. He sees you through eyes of Restoration. He sees you through eyes of Grace and Mercy. He sees you through eyes of Empathy. You can come to Jesus expectantly today, knowing that you will be received with open arms and a caring heart. Jesus knows where you’re at and knows what you’ve been through. You can trust Him with your deepest wounds, your most tender emotions, and your most broken places. No matter how you’ve seen yourself or how others have viewed you, Jesus sees you differently. He’s moved with compassion. That’s God’s Word for you today.