Gift from Creator Tells the Good Story 8
8
POWER TO CLEANSE AND HEAL
1A great crowd of people followed Creator Sets Free (Jesus) as he walked down from the mountainside. 2A man with a skin disease all over his body came up to Creator Sets Free (Jesus). He humbled himself, bowed down, and pleaded with him, “Honored One! If you want to, you can heal and cleanse me.”
3“I want to!” Creator Sets Free (Jesus) said as he reached out and touched the man.
Tribal law says that anyone who touches anything unclean would also be unclean and in need of cleansing. # 8:3 Leviticus 22:6 But Creator Sets Free (Jesus), instead of becoming unclean himself, cleansed the man with his touch.
“Be clean!” he said, and right away the disease left the man and he was healed.
4Creator Sets Free (Jesus) instructed the man, “Tell no one! Take the traditional ceremonial gift and show yourself to a holy man. Then have him perform the cleansing ceremony given by the lawgiver Drawn from the Water (Moses). This will show others that you have been healed and made ceremonially clean again.”
FAITH FROM A HEAD SOLDIER
5As Creator Sets Free (Jesus) walked into Village of Comfort (Capernaum), a head soldier from the People of Iron (Romans) came up to him. 6“Honored One,” the head soldier begged, “my household servant that I care deeply about is lying in bed, unable to move and in great pain.”
7“I will come to your house and heal him,” Creator Sets Free (Jesus) told the man.
8But the head soldier, knowing the tribal traditions, said to him, “Honored One, I am not worth the trouble that coming to my house would bring to you. If you will only speak the word, I know my servant will be healed, 9for I am also a man under orders with many soldiers under me. I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes. My servants do what I say.”
10Creator Sets Free (Jesus) was amazed at this answer. He turned to the ones who were following him and said to them, “I speak from my heart, I have never seen such great faith, not even among the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel).”
He let his words sink deep into the hearts of the people listening.
11Then he said, “Listen closely, for I tell you that this man is only one of many who will come from the four directions#8:11 Lit. East and West to sit in a great lodge and feast with our ancestors. They will sit down with Father of Many Nations (Abraham), He Made Us Laugh (Isaac), and Heel Grabber (Jacob) in the Land of Creator’s good road from above. 12But the ones who were first born to walk the good road will be forced out into the night. Outside in the darkness, they will howl with tears and grind their teeth together in anger and frustration.”
13Creator Sets Free (Jesus) then turned to face the head soldier.
“Go home,” he said to him, “Your faith in me has healed your servant.”
And right then the head soldier’s servant was healed!
IN THE HOME OF STANDS ON THE ROCK
14Creator Sets Free (Jesus) came to the home of Stands on the Rock (Peter). The mother-in-law of Stands on the Rock (Peter) was sick in bed with a fever. 15When Creator Sets Free (Jesus) saw her, he reached out and touched her hand. Right then the fever left her. She felt so good she got up and made a meal for them.
16Later that day, when the sun was going down, many who were tormented by evil spirits were brought to him. He spoke to the spirits, forced them out with a word, and healed the ones who were sick. 17All this was done to bring full meaning to the ancient prophecy spoken by Creator Will Help Us (Isaiah), “He took upon himself our sickness and carried the weight of our diseases.”#8:17 Isaiah 53:4
COST OF FOLLOWING
18Creator Sets Free (Jesus) saw the great number of people around him and gave his followers instructions to prepare a canoe to cross over to the other side of the lake.
19On the way to the lake, a scroll keeper walked up to him, “Wisdomkeeper,” he said, “I will follow you wherever you want to go.”
20He answered the man, “The foxes live in their holes, the winged ones who fly above us live in their nests, but the True Human Being has no place to lay his head.”
21Another follower said to Creator Sets Free (Jesus), “Honored One, let me first go home to my father until it is time to bury him.”
22“Let the ones who are spiritually dead bury their dead,” he said to the man. “You come and walk the road with me.”
POWER OVER STORMS
23 They came to the lake, and Creator Sets Free (Jesus) and his close followers climbed into a canoe and began to paddle across the lake.
A dark and menacing storm began to move in quickly, and the sound of distant thunder rolled over the waters. They paddled harder, trying to get to the other shore before the storm hit.
24Suddenly the violent storm overtook them and threatened to sink the large canoe, but Creator Sets Free (Jesus) had fallen into a deep sleep. 25In desperation they woke him up.
“Wisdomkeeper!” they cried out. “We are fighting for our lives! Save us!”
26“Why are you full of fear?” he asked them, “Is your faith so small?”
He stood up and spoke sharply to the wind and the raging water. At his words a great peace fell upon the surface of the waters.
27His followers were greatly amazed. They shook their heads and said to one another, “What kind of man is this? Even the wind and the waves do what he says.”
POWER OVER EVIL SPIRITS
28When they finished crossing the lake, they came to the territory of the people of Honored in the End (Gadarenes). As soon as Creator Sets Free (Jesus) stepped from the canoe, two men coming from the burial caves who were tormented by evil spirits came up to him. These men were so violent that no one dared to pass through that area.
29“Son of the Great Spirit!” they shrieked. “What do you want from us? Are you here to torment us before Creator’s chosen time?”
30In the distance a large herd of pigs was feeding on a hillside. 31The evil spirits spoke through the men. “If you must force us out,” they begged, “then send us into that herd of pigs.”
32“Be gone!” he said, giving them permission.
The evil spirits left and entered into the herd of pigs. Then the whole herd stampeded down the steep hill headlong into Lake of Circle of Nations (Sea of Galilee) and drowned in the deep water.
33The ones who were watching over the pigs rushed away, shaken and afraid. They went to the village and told everyone all that happened.
34When they heard this, the whole village went out to find Creator Sets Free (Jesus). When they found him, they begged him to leave their land.
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