This is an excerpt from last Sunday's message on Jesus and the Leper.
I helped a woman at East Hastings today up from the floor. She was so utterly broken - both mentally and physically - to the point where no man would get intimate with her, let alone marry her. The entire time, I felt God prompting me to embrace her and pray for her.
I couldn't. I just couldn't.
Its 4:00am now and I still can't fall asleep.
The image of her grovelling on the floor won't leave me.
And as I'm praying and repenting, I begin to realize with horror that... that was me.
Sin is infinitely more abominable than leprosy and insanity. Yet God loved me while I was still a sinner. (Romans 5:8)
"...on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.
“And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’" (Ezekiel 16:4-6)
Let us stand in awe of that amazing grace every moment of our lives.