April 21st, 21

The leper had a question. Is God willing? Is God willing to reach out with hands of compassion and touch him? To make him clean? I imagine you might have that same question. I think everyone has that question. Is God willing? Will God reach out to me? Will God touch me and make me clean? Or will God keep his distance? The Roman officer had that question for his slave, is God willing to reach out with compassion and touch him? The crowds that lined up outside of Peter's mother in law's house? They all had that same question. Will God reach out with compassion and touch me heal me? Or will God keep his distance? We all want to know whether God cares enough whether God is compassionate, and he is willing to make up the distance? Because we surely can't. Will he reach out and touch us and make us clean? It's a fair question. It's at the root of all of our questions. We're all tempted to believe the negative, that God is not willing to make up that distance. In fact, religion has made a fortune selling us the lie of separation, the lie that God is separate from us. He's unwilling to make up the distance because of our uncleanness. He's holy, we are not therefore God is separate from us. But separation is a lie. God is not unwilling to reach out with compassion, and touch us in our uncleanness. The gospel is a direct contradiction to this lie. Jesus says, I am willing. There is no separation. I'm here right now, just as you are right where you are. God has come to sit with us right? At our worst at our lowest, at our most broken, he's willing. And he is present. He is not separate. He's with you right now. He has already unmasked the live separation, and revealed to the world. What God is really like, God is with us. God is willing, God is compassionate, and God desires to set us free. And to make us clean. My friends, is such good news. And the prayer of my own heart today is that I will be rooted deeper and deeper into the gospel of union with God in Christ, that the lies of separation will be routed out from my mind and my heart. And that's a prayer that I have for my family too for my wife and my daughters and my son. And that's the prayer that I have for you may be so

You are loved!