Don't tell anyone!

Matthew 8:1:4 records Jesus healing a man with leprosy. Not an out-of-the ordinary kind of act for Jesus, but this situation is different. After healing the man, Jesus says, "See that you don't tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them." I was curious, why would Jesus tell him NOT to tell anyone, but to go to the priest. Perhaps had the man stopped and began to tell others they might have answered him, "Jesus who?! That carpenter... I doubt it" or maybe "yea sure, we'll see how long this lasts." Perhaps the stopping along the way might have hindered the man's own confidence in his experience with Jesus. Perhaps by the time that he had arrived at the priests - the very ones to whom Jesus sent the man to testify - his message and belief would have been stale at best, or maybe bereft entirely of the passion and zeal he'd experienced only a few hours earlier. Then I began to think; 'What thing has Jesus done in me - and who has He commanded me to tell?'

I shudder to think how often I have experienced some incredible sense of His working in my life, bolted out the door, and within a few hours lost the passion of that revelation...defeated by apathetic hearers or my own questions plaguing the truth and reality of what He had done. Worse yet, I have sensed something that was once hot within me, long since squandered on indifferent hearers, that I knew was for a particular people. The pain of realizing there was no zeal or conviction necessary to communicate that truth in the moment it was needed was almost unbearable.

He has done a mighty thing in redeeming us. We now must realize that His ongoing work in our lives is to be the greatest testimony to those for whom we have been sent. Do not think, oh dear heart, that His work in you is for you alone. You have become His living testimony. His very love in you is validated as love because it reaches beyond you to others.

Lord Jesus, help me to revel in awe at what you have done in me, and help me to then carry that directly to those for whom you designed my witness should be given, that they too may come a saving knowledge and worship the living God.