1 When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priestand offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”REFLECTIONSWritten by Stephen SheadThis month in our daily devotions, we will work through Matthew chapters 8 to 11. Jesus has just finished his famous “Sermon on the Mount” (June’s devotions), where he showed that he is the great Teacher who has come to bring God’s kingdom.I love today’s verses. I spent my early childhood in India where my parents were missionaries. We lived near a Christian rehabilitation centre for lepers, and we saw first-hand how leprosy isn’t just an illness, it also turns people into outcasts. Lepers in India are not allowed to touch anything belonging to someone else – if they do, whatever they touched has to be destroyed.In Israel in Jesus’ timne, lepers and people with skin diseases were also outcasts. In fact, in the Old Testament Law, any disease affecting the skin made you ceremonially “unclean”. Skin diseases symbolised the way sin cuts us off from God and also tends to “spread” to those around us, so lepers could not go into the temple to worship God and could not touch or go near anybody else.This leper somehow knows that Jesus can heal him, though he doesn’t just ask to be healed. He asks Jesus to make him “clean” – not just physically better, but also to take away his sin and guilt and shame.I find verse 3 so moving. It’s a beautiful picture of the tender love of Jesus for people like this outcast. Jesus could have healed and cleansed him just with a word. But instead, he chooses to touch him as well. A normal person would have become defiled by doing that, but in this case, the leper is healed and made clean before God as well. Jesus’ cleansing power is more infectious than the leper’s disease!All of us are like this leper spiritually, until we turn to Jesus, ask him to take away our sin and shame and make us clean before God. Do you know his cleansing touch? Thank him today!QUESTIONIf you asked Jesus to forgive your sins, do you think he would be willing to?ABOUT THE AUTHORStephen is our Senior Minister and leads our Bossley Park Congregation. He is a bit sad that the footy and AFL seasons are over, but is trying to make up for it by keeping up with the American NFL season.