✨ Those Who Walk With Jesus — Part 34 ✨ And Jesus Said, “I Want To!”

✨ Those Who Walk With Jesus — Part 34 ✨
And Jesus Said, “I Want To!”

📝 Their Message (Summary)
In Matthew 8, a leper falls before Jesus, desperate: “Lord, if You want to, You can make me clean.” The shocking response of Jesus? He reaches out, touches the untouchable, and says: “I want to! Be clean.”

This was scandalous. Lepers were despised, quarantined, considered cursed. To touch one was to risk uncleanness. But Jesus—free from fear, free from man’s opinion—chooses compassion over ritual. He breaks through barriers with His wild holiness.

John Eldredge writes, “The more you fall in love with Jesus’ genuine goodness, the more you will detest the counterfeit of false piety. Jesus has a wild freedom, born out of profound holiness.”

Yet too often, we stitch the veil back up. We act as if God is too distant, too holy to draw near. But when Jesus died, God Himself tore the veil in two. The barrier is gone. And the same Jesus who touched lepers still says to us, “I want to!”

🔥 My Reflection
Elder Eyring once said prayer should not be too conversational, that God is too far above us. I understand his caution, but my heart aches when I hear that. Because my Jesus is the friend of sinners. He sits with the broken. He touches lepers. He invites me into daily conversation.

This passage stirs me to remember: when I come to Him in my brokenness—my leprosy of sin and shame—He doesn’t recoil. He doesn’t hesitate. He reaches out and says, “I want to!”

That changes everything.

🕊️ The Invitation

• Bring your brokenness to Him. Say simply: “Lord, if You want to, You can heal this part of me.”

• Listen for His answer. Hear Him say back: “I want to! Be clean.”

• Refuse to stitch the veil back up. Don’t let fear or false reverence keep you from closeness with Him.

Pray:
“Jesus, I come with my need, my sin, my weakness. Reach out and touch me. Say again over me, ‘I want to!’ Tear away the veil of distance in my heart, and let me know You as my Friend, my Healer, my Lord.”

 

🔗 Walking with Jesus — A Family’s Story
This is part of a series sharing the six-year testimony of a family walking daily with Jesus.
Previous: Post #33 — “It Is Written…”
Next: Post #35 — (coming soon)