Shhhhh! Don’t tell anyone

There are some surprises in life are hard to keep from others.

Hailee and I have had the joy of telling others that we were pregnant a couple of times.

The first time was a huge surprise for people.

We would make sure everything was fine and try not to tell anyone the first three months.

We (Well….Hailee) tried to come up with creative ways to tell our parents, family and friends.

Not telling anyone for a while was hard.

When you are excited about something, you want to tell the world what's going on.

Have you ever had a surprise you wanted to tell but just couldn't?

Time and time again Jesus went through this.

Jesus is going through a time when he is healing a man with leprosy.

He heals the man and tells him this in Matthew 8 verse 4…

"See that you don't tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."

Jesus just heals this man with leprosy and then tells him don't tell anyone?

Why would he do this? How big of a deal was this?

Leprosy was an awful disease.

If you had this disease, there was no cure for it.

There was only one other case in the Bible where somebody was cured of leprosy and that was Miriam in Number 12:10-15 (Way, way back in the Old Testament).

If you had leprosy you were not allowed to go into the Temple, people looked at disease as a punishment from God.

Obviously the reason why you are sick, you did something to tick God off.

Jesus healed this man.

This would be a surprise you would want to tell everyone.

Yet Jesus told him not to tell anyone and go to a place he wouldn't be allowed.

He wanted the chief priests to see this man healed, they would have to go and find Jesus and ask how this happened.

In the book of Mark Jesus does this a lot and the people couldn't hold back there excitement and told everyone.

I couldn't imagine what it would be like to hold a surprise like being cured of an incurable disease like that.

Some surprises are hard to keep from one another.

Being pregnant was a hard thing to keep from other people.

Jesus is not a surprise that should be kept from other people.

God gave us Jesus who died on the cross for our sins, not just yours or mine but for everyone.

Jesus is a surprise that isn't kept from anyone, all we have to do is accept him.

Some surprises are right in front of us if we want them.

We have the surprise of accepting someone who loves us no matter what we have done wrong.

Would you like a surprise like that?

I like it.

Have a great day.