SCRIPTURE: Mark 2:1-12
Imagine having surgery to have your appendix removed, and they performed heart surgery?
Or what if you asked Jesus to heal you, and He gave you courage to be sick instead?
These men wanted Jesus to heal their friend, and He forgave the man his sins.
We want Jesus to make our lives easier, but He wants to make our lives better.
Jesus knows what our real need is, but do we?
Sickness is a symptom of a deeper concern, our sick spiritual condition.
We need to be released from the curse and the guilt of sin, death and hell.
Jesus has the authority and the power to do this, to really help us!
Through this passage the Lord is inviting me to come to Him for what I really need.
To p.u.s.h. (pray until something happens) through every barrier to receive true, deep, lasting healing.
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
Lord, what I want and what I need are very different. Perform the heart surgery I need, and make me truly better.
Observation:
The ‘Miracle Worker’ is here and they gathered in great numbers. They came to hear, but also to be healed, at least the man on the mat. What compassion the friends had for the man on the mat.
Jesus forgives his sins. What? I am not healed?
Knowing the thoughts of mankind, Christ also healed the man physically. WoW!
Application:
The love of friends is important. Being kind and compassionate one toward another = one anothering or a mark for a christian.
His sins were forgiven – that is the cause of everything. Our state of today is because of our sins and that needs healing. That is the root of all evil. First things first. Go to the source of our problems and bring them all to the Master and then go out in that renewed power and strength. GodStrong.
Prayer:
Make me a channel of Your peace this day Lord.
1. Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me bring you love;
Where there is injury, your healing pow’r,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.
2. Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope;
Where there is darkness, – only light,
And where there’s sadness, ever joy.
3. O Spirit, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consolded as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul – .
4. Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.