The heart of a true worshipper
Service, fasting, tithing, singing in church, being a worker in church, etc, good/awesome as those things are, they don’t compel God to act. What He deals with is the state of your heart. We will be looking at a not so popular worshipper that moved God to acting in Matthew 8:1-4, yup, the man with leprosy.
This happened just after “The sermon on the mount” in Matthew 5-7. Jesus was walking down the mountain with thousands(the bible says “vast throngs” – throngs alone means “a large crowd of people” then vast means “of very great extent” so put that together and you should even be thinking millions lol) behind Him. Then this man, a leper – a man with a contagious skin disease and lumps all over his body was walking to Jesus. The thing about leprosy is that it “kills” the nerves of different parts of the body so he could not feel anything on his skin. He was probably going up the mountain to see Jesus since he must have heard He was giving life messages on the mountain and had a chance of being healed there.
The heart of a true worshipper is in a constant humble state.
He saw Jesus and he did next was fall on his face before Jesus. Remember a very large number of people were following Jesus? Right in front of that multitude, He let go of every form of pride and fell down before Jesus, not caring what anybody thought of him at that moment. Many of us are lepers i.e have issues or problems, some are obvious to people and some aren’t, and in moments when the presence of God is there, instead of us to fall on our faces and pour our heart out to Him, we start to wonder, “what will the person behind or beside me think of me?, what if she hears my prayer point?, etc”. Are you currently allowing pride ruin your chances of being healed? I have one word for you, come off your high horse! It is not worth it.
The heart of a true worshipper acknowledges the power of God and submits to Its will
In the post titled “You are the word you speak. How?” I briefly explained how the Holy Spirit is the power of God, it’s worth the read if you haven’t read it yet. Back to the leper, He did something I think is intriguing next. He acknowledged the power of God which is something we are expected to do as believers but a man that suffers from leprosy telling Jesus that “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean” was amazing, why? “Lord, if thou wilt” and in modern english, he says “Lord if it is your will”.
Even in his sickness, His order of priority was God’s will first then my healing next i.e except Your will aligns with my healing, I want your will first and I feel with the build up of his humility, acknowledging the power of God and finally his wanting God’s will first, Jesus was moved to tears as Mark’s account in Mark 1:41 said Jesus had compassion. A common leper hit the spot of God’s heart that moved God to compassion and out of so much compassion and excitement, He touched the man with a contagious skin disease and shouted “I am willing! be cleansed!” and immediately he was cleansed. You are probably wondering how I know He shouted lol, almost every translation put the exclamation mark at the end of “I am willing” especially the greek version that was translated.
You can touch the heart of God and move Him to compassion…