Rise, Walk, Carry!
I am reading through the gospels right now and I am in Luke. I love the story of the men who bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus and lower him through the roof. Could you imagine being there and seeing that? I picture Jesus smiling up at the friends when He tells the man "your sins are forgiven you" and then "rise up and walk".
As I was reading this story again I felt like God opened my eyes to see another layer to it. It reminds me yet again how much I love our Jesus. He is such a thoughtful Savior. When He healed someone with a paralyzing illness He is recorded different times saying something about getting up and walking or take up your bed and walk. He never said you are healed now take months of rehab to learn how to walk since you have never used your muscles this way. Think about it. Some of these people were born paralyzed.
Think about a baby learning to walk. They do not get it right the first time. They certainly do not get up and carry a pallet big enough for them to sleep on. What about when someone sustains an injury that requires them to learn to walk again? They still have to strengthen muscles and train their body again to do something they were once capable of doing easily. I believe the fact that Jesus heals some one of their paralyzing disease is the first miracle but the fact that He provides the mental ability and physical strength required to immediately follow through on the first miracle is a miracle as well. I love that Jesus doesn't heal someone and then allow them to stay rolling around in the dirt and dust to figure out the next steps on their own. They don't even seem to fall and get bruised or scraped when they follow His instructions. No, He heals, directs and provides the capability immediately to leave the thing that has held them back in life. I think sometimes getting up and moving away from whatever it is that I have begged God to remove from me takes as much faith as believing He could remove it in the first place. Praise the Lord that in the midst of His answering of prayers and His guidance in my life that I am not left to figure out the next steps on my own. He provides for those as well.
What a thoughtful Savior.
As I was reading this story again I felt like God opened my eyes to see another layer to it. It reminds me yet again how much I love our Jesus. He is such a thoughtful Savior. When He healed someone with a paralyzing illness He is recorded different times saying something about getting up and walking or take up your bed and walk. He never said you are healed now take months of rehab to learn how to walk since you have never used your muscles this way. Think about it. Some of these people were born paralyzed.
Think about a baby learning to walk. They do not get it right the first time. They certainly do not get up and carry a pallet big enough for them to sleep on. What about when someone sustains an injury that requires them to learn to walk again? They still have to strengthen muscles and train their body again to do something they were once capable of doing easily. I believe the fact that Jesus heals some one of their paralyzing disease is the first miracle but the fact that He provides the mental ability and physical strength required to immediately follow through on the first miracle is a miracle as well. I love that Jesus doesn't heal someone and then allow them to stay rolling around in the dirt and dust to figure out the next steps on their own. They don't even seem to fall and get bruised or scraped when they follow His instructions. No, He heals, directs and provides the capability immediately to leave the thing that has held them back in life. I think sometimes getting up and moving away from whatever it is that I have begged God to remove from me takes as much faith as believing He could remove it in the first place. Praise the Lord that in the midst of His answering of prayers and His guidance in my life that I am not left to figure out the next steps on my own. He provides for those as well.
What a thoughtful Savior.
"Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them. Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him. And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus.
When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”
And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen strange things today!'” Luke 5:17-26
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