And the priest shall look, and if the eruption has spread in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him  unclean, it is a leprous disease…But if the raw flesh recovers and turns white again, then he shall come to the priest, and the priest shall examine him, and if the disease has turned white, then the priest shall pronounce the diseased person clean; he is clean.

Leviticus 13:8, 17

As I read the 3 chapters from Leviticus this week, I had two thoughts – 1.  I’m glad that I’m not a priest.  I would hate to have to look at rashes each Sunday to see who could come to church and who couldn’t.  2.  How easy it was to be unclean.  Now leprosy was a serious condition at that time.  They had strict laws because they understood just how dangerous it could be.  They had to protect the people from contagion, so they separated those who were leprous.  It had to be a hard and lonely life.  You couldn’t work, because no one wanted you around.  You couldn’t live among people.  You couldn’t worship.  You were so separated that the only people you could be around were fellow lepers.  The only people who would touch you were those who already had the disease.  It had to be horrible!

Skip to the New Testament  reading from last week (Luke 17) and we see Jesus healing 10 lepers, and his first order to them is to go and show themselves to the priests.  Their lives were going to be restored!  They were blessed!  You can see why they run off.  You can see why they fail to turn around and thank Jesus.  They were excited to return to life!  I can relate.  I can see times in my life when I was richly blessed beyond measure and I went about excited, but failed to turn around and properly thank the source of my blessings, God.  I can see times when I rushed off into blessing without thanksgiving.  It’s easy to do, but not what we should do.

Are you blessed in life?  Did you thank God for those blessings?  Don’t fail to stop and turn around and give God the blessings he deserves.