When you are born again, Christ places His Holy Spirit IN you and He unites with your dead human spirit, giving new life – you become a new creation

His very being was being destroyed, his soul was sick and he knew it. The turmoil of illness put him in a sickbed and whether real or imagined, he seemed to have enemies all around.

Now, understand, no one owes a life to Satan, the debt is owed to God but it is a debt, a ransom, that only He Himself could redeem. So much of God’s character is all about redemption.

How many of us have cried out in a similar fashion as truly minor echoes of this blast that resounded throughout the cosmos and perhaps throughout all time.

Was this a point in which He could not see the ‘other side’? The Bible tells us, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…” What did He hold on to as He let go of His life?

The Pharisees ‘lived in the pages’ of scripture but they were blind to the truth because their own agendas.

There’s something wonderfully sudden when we recognize and accept Jesus Christ as God’s Son and our Savior. The Old Testament has many instances of sudden judgement, but the New Testament shows us over and over the sudden realization of the Son.

They loved Jesus and they wanted heaven, but if even the rich were kind of going hitless (pardon my baseball analogies) and they themselves were basically penniless – well:

Then Peter said, "See, we have left all and followed You."

The unspoken but clear implication was, “So then, what’s in it for us??”

Now, none of Christ’s encounters were by chance. He headed through Samaria for a reason, and it may have been to meet this small group of desperate people plagued with leprosy. As I read the above verses this morning, the part that caught my attention was, “And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.” It was a test of their faith and a testimony to the priest(s).