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You Are Justified

For many years, there was a medical condition that generated such fear and alarm in society that many who were diagnosed with it were transported to isolated areas and never heard from again. Any idea what infectious disease I’m referring to? Some of those that had it were recorded in Scripture as having come to Jesus for healing (Matthew 8:2). I’ve provided an article for us to read that discusses what caused this, whether people are still becoming infected with it and what has been done to prevent it.

SURVIVING LEPROSY: A STORY OF GRACE

Written by MAP Staff | January 30, 2018 at 3:06 PM

Sunday was World Leprosy Day, a day that aims to raise awareness of a disease that many people believe to be extinct. The global elimination of leprosy ([i.e.,] a prevalence rate of less than [one case per ten thousand people at the global level) was officially announced in 2000. In reality, approximately [two hundred ten thousand new cases are diagnosed each year,] and some believe millions more are living undiagnosed.

Leprosy is a chronic, infectious disease that develops slowly, with an average incubation period of five years. It is caused by a bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae, and chiefly affects the skin, peripheral nerves, mucous membranes of the respiratory tract, and eyes. [It’s curable. But when left untreated,] they can cause severe deformities and have [life-threatening] consequences.

Multidrug therapy treatments have been provided worldwide by the WHO free of charge since 1995. [It’s] a simple yet highly effective cure for all types of leprosy. Sadly, however, those living with the disease are still often stigmatized and shunned from their communities.

MAP International [has been] engaged in the fight to end leprosy in West Africa since early 2002. We joined with renowned partners American Leprosy Missions, Effect: Hope and The Leprosy Mission Ireland. The fight against leprosy included strategies focused on cure, [care,] and ending the disease.

In addition to teaching awareness, [prevention,] and treatment of these diseases to the local community, MAP also trained healthcare professionals to identify symptoms and begin treatment in the earliest stages of the disease to save lives.

[Here’s] one story of survival that MAP shared nearly two years ago. [It’s a story as touching today as it was then. It’s a story about a woman named] Grace.

Suffering from leprosy [hasn’t been easy. Early on, no one knew why, as a young child,] Grace had scaly patches on her hands. Leprosy, although curable, carries a stigma that causes people, even young [children,] to be alienated from their community. Grace is tough, she’s twelve years old and has been suffering from leprosy since she was three years old. [She’s] the only daughter living with six brothers in rural Cote d’Ivoire.

Seeking a normal life for her daughter, Grace’s mother sent her to Chinese healers in the [community,] and for a short time - it worked. When the same patches reappeared on her hands, her mother traveled to a rural clinic where MAP International and American Leprosy Missions worked to prevent the spread of leprosy.

“The nurse gave me some injections, and a few days [later, my hands were back to normal,” said Grace.]

The following year her leprosy came back, and Grace knew just where to go – the clinic. She received a full course of treatment and her patches once again cleared. As her mother shared after her treatment:

“[I’d] like to say thank you to God today for showing me the right way to treat my daughter for leprosy. She has suffered from this since she was three. I tried so many different treatments, but the disease [wouldn’t stop. I didn’t know my daughter had leprosy,] and it’s a bad disease that can deform [people;] it could have deformed my daughter.

God did a miracle by showing me the best way to treat her today. My daughter [won’t] have a deformity because of the nurse that treated her. Thank you, [God, again.” Grace’s mother, Odette.]81

Did you know that like someone who has had leprosy and was either shunned or alienated, every person born into this world is condemned? Why is this the case? Please turn to the book of Romans and find out.

Romans 5:12

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

God placed the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, to live in a perfect environment without sin. They were instructed that every fruit bearing tree was good to eat from except one called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Through deception and coercion by a serpent, i.e., the Devil, each of them partook of this forbidden fruit and thus sinned. Because of this disobedience or transgression, man’s nature was corrupted.

Some call this the sin nature, which is passed down from the father, when his sperm (reproductive cells) joins with the female egg and the child’s body begins to form. It’s believed that this nature is found in the blood.

Thereby, sin (the sin nature) entered (was transmitted) into the world (Adam’s descendants), and death (physical and spiritual death – Romans 6:23) passed upon (spread throughout) all men. Thus, each person in their depraved state is considered as a vessel of wrath alienated from God (Romans 9:22). Fortunately, like the medicine that Grace took for her leprosy, there’s available for each of us a cure out from the fallen state that’s found in the same book of Romans.

Romans 5:1

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

You’re justified (declared righteous; put right with God; the passing out of the condemned condition into an assurance of God’s love;82 guiltless and uncondemned and righteous in a righteousness which God accepts, the Lord Jesus83)by faith ([belief] in a [Savior] who died for us and rose again84), and because of such you have peace with God the Father (entered into a state of peace; the state of reconciliation; the result of a legal standing; always on God’s side; no longer the object of God’s displeasure85) through our Lord Jesus Christ (because we’re accepted in Him).

And unlike Grace, you don’t have to take medicine again. You’re justified. You’ve entered into an assurance of God’s love, having passed out of a condemned condition always being on God’s side. Take a hold of that in your mind and never let it go.

The next spiritual reality that has taken place in our lives is one that we have a difficult time believing because when we think about what’s being said about us, we tend to look at our shortcomings and believe this can’t be so.

Endnotes

81“SURVIVING LEPROSY: A STORY OF GRACE,” map international 15 November 2022 .

82The Pulpit Commentary.

83The Pulpit Commentary.

84Wuest’s Word Studies.

85Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary.