Luke 5:18-19 – 18 Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19 When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.
These men acted in faith. They wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of lowering the paralyzed man
down from the roof if they didn’t have faith that Jesus would heal him.
Do we act on faith today? Do you think Jesus wanted this man to cast his burden onto Him or do you
think Jesus wanted him to work it out himself?
Of course the Lord wants us to trust Him and cast our cares and prayers onto Him. Yet what do most
of us do? Try to do it all ourselves and our way. What kind of faith is that?
Independence away from the Lord is how we get into trouble. It’s a good way to drift into the darkness.
Does God like faith from people?
In the verses above Jesus ends it by saying:
Luke 5:24-26 – ………….. He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 25 Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. 26 Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”
There is much more to these verses but I wanted to concentrate on the faith portion instead of the battle on the forgiveness of sins with the Pharisees.
The Lord isn’t looking for an independent self reliant group of people. He is looking for a loving submissive bunch of servants.
Tomorrow we will stay on the theme of faith.
Bryan Vanshur
September 5, 2011 at 7:05 pm
Patrick, great blog! 🙂 This is something that I REALLY need to work on more. One thing I learned about God is that He’s there with us every step alongside us. For the longest time I always thought in the back of my mind that I had to figure out everything on my own. I found out otherwise. We’re not on our own. God is not One to let us flounder about in life. There have been a few times in my life that I’ve wondered, “Why did I have to go through this situation? What is/was the point?” I think that’s where faith comes in to the picture. God allowed me to go through some things to illustrate His love. I’ve often said to people, “If He would have just TOLD me, I would have listened!” It was then pointed out that I probably would NOT have listened due to our human nature. 🙂 O what fools we mortals be!
Keep up the good work! Take care and have a great week. 🙂
Ron
September 6, 2011 at 7:02 am
Great points today and its exactly what I needed. I have been praying about a relationship situation I have at work for quite some time, but after reading this I’m reminded that I’m not relying on God to repair it like I should. I’m trying to independently “fix” things as soon as I finish my prayer. Thanks for the reminder and encouragement.