The Need for Cleansing
Like the bird released in Leviticus 14, I live not under guilt, but in the wide sky of freedom bought by blood.
Ray Stedman brings out a vital distinction today: healing is God’s work alone, but cleansing is something He invites us to walk in as a response. In Leviticus 14, the priest examines someone already healed of leprosy. The healing had already taken place—so why the ceremony? Because cleansing is the outward testimony of what God has already done inwardly.
Stedman draws a sharp but compassionate contrast between our tendency to focus on surface issues and God’s desire to go to the root—He never covers up spiritual leprosy with religious bandages. He deals with it definitively, and always by the shedding of blood. In the ritual of two birds—one sacrificed, one released—we are given a striking picture: one life given to death, the other set free. It’s not about managing symptoms. It’s about the death of the old life and the release into the new.
When we find envy, jealousy, resentment, or anger rising up in us—often revealed by the pressures of life—we are not called to suppress or excuse them. We are called to bring them to the Lord. And what does He do? He arrests them at the root by grace. He brings healing. Then, He invites us into a pattern of life that reflects that healing—cleansing our ways, aligning us with the truth of who we now are. And all of it points to Jesus, our final and perfect substitute. His death didn’t just manage our sin. It ended its authority.
Journal Entry: In the Voice of the Holy Spirit
My child, I have already placed My life within you. The sickness of envy, impatience, or resentment no longer defines you, though its residue may still rise like smoke from a fire long extinguished. When you sense it, bring it to Me—not to be ridiculed or punished, but to be reminded that it has already been crucified with Christ.
The old life was never meant to be renovated. It was meant to be buried. I do not deal in temporary relief but in total transformation. The blood of the Lamb has once for all settled the issue of your righteousness. What you now experience is not condemnation, but cleansing. You are learning to live outwardly in a way that mirrors the healing already worked within you.
So when you walk through circumstances that agitate the flesh, do not fear them. They expose only what I’ve already overcome. You no longer need to explain or excuse the old attitudes—I am your life now. I am your peace in place of frustration, your gentleness in place of harshness, your mercy where there was once envy.
Come to Me not as one diseased but as one delivered, and I will guide you into outward wholeness. The blood has been shed. The old has died. The living bird has flown. You are free to live cleansed.
Scriptures woven in: Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:6-11; 1 John 1:7; Hebrews 10:14; Colossians 3:3-5; Leviticus 14:3-7
Prayer
Father, I rejoice in what You’ve already done within me. I don’t come as a leper begging for healing—I come as one already healed by the touch of Your grace, learning to walk in the fullness of what You’ve done. You have not asked me to repair the old but to walk in the new. I trust that as You expose what no longer belongs to me, You also remind me that it has been crucified with Christ. Thank You for inviting me to live as one cleansed, not by my efforts, but by Your perfect work through the blood of Jesus. I trust You to lead me moment by moment in that freedom today.
Devotional Credit:
This post is inspired by the April 16 devotional in “Immeasurably More” by Ray Stedman.
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