Jesus in His Relationships - Jesus and the Marginalised (Daily Devotional)

Shalom! Thank you for joining us for Living Supernaturally, where we look into God’s word, learn something, apply it in our lives and take some time to pray. Through this series, we have looked at Jesus in His relationships and through the last couple of episodes, we looked at different relationships in which Jesus showed and demonstrated His love. Today, we are looking at how Jesus dealt with the marginalized and He dealt with compassion. Scripture reads in Luke chapter 5, verse 13, ‘Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”’ We see that in every society, people are pushed to the margins, those who may be considered too unclean just like in Jesus’ time, maybe too broken, maybe too sinful or unworthy. In Jesus’ day, it was lepers, Samaritans, tax collectors, the poor; many avoided them but Jesus didn’t. He did just the opposite, He went towards them. He broke through every cultural and religious barrier and loved them with compassion. The verse for today shows how Jesus touched the leper. This leper would have been isolated, rejected, an outcast and was forced to live outside because of his disease and most people wouldn’t even look at him, forget going near him but Jesus saw him. Compassion begins when we also truly notice those a lot of other people may overlook and that is what we see Jesus did here. Jesus even touched the untouchable. Instead of stepping back in fear, we see Jesus reaches out His hand and touches this man. This act was probably very shocking to the onlookers there because touching a leper can be quite unthinkable in that time. Yet, Jesus wasn’t afraid of being defiled, His holiness was that which brought healing and that is what we see the compassion comes with action, when we move forward in action. We also see that Jesus broke every barrier with love. Over and over, we see Jesus welcomed those on the outside. He spoke with the Samaritan woman, He called a tax collector, Mathew to be a disciple, He went to Zaccheaus’ house for dinner and invited children to come to Him. His love was radically inclusive. It shows us that Gods kingdom has room for every outcast and marginalized person. What does this mean for us? Following Jesus means that we imitate His compassion. Who may be the marginalized in your context? It maybe those who are ignored, judged, criticized and what does that compassion without barriers mean? It means seeing them the way that God sees them. It means drawing near to them instead of stepping away. It means extending love that shows and restores back dignity and love to them. May our prayer be that we see others the way Jesus did. We can ask God to help us to remove fear, prejudice, bias or even indifference in our heart and teach us to reach out in love. Let’s pray together, Heavenly Father, we pray that you will help us remove every form of prejudice we may have against people who may be marginalized in our society in our context. May we look at people with love and compassion, people who need you and may we in faith reach out and extend your love. May we be your hands and your feet. Empower us to do so, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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