S) "20 Seeing their faith, He said, “[j]Friend, your sins are forgiven you.”... 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins have been forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 24 But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,”—He said to the paralytic—“I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home.”25 Immediately he got up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God."
Luke 5:20, 23-25 (NASB)
O) I feel like this is one of those passages that makes me feel so stupid. So first, there is this surface-level lesson that Jesus is proving His words (forgiving) have authority by His powerful actions (the healing). But the more compelling lesson to take away from this story is one that is so much more simple, even than the first I mentioned: Forgiveness > Healing.
A) So, in this story, I wonder about the paralyzed man. Here are his friends taking a huge risk in a tremendous act of faith, lowering the guy through someone's roof, into a room with Jesus and a bunch of Pharisees. When Jesus turns to him, and he sees the compassionate eyes that have been famous about Jesus, he must get really excited about getting healed... and then Jesus simply tells him he's forgiven...? Were his friends like, "For what? The roof thing?" But here's the admission of my own guilt: I've been just as blind to God's eternal gift, while completely distracted by something temporal. It's the most simple, but maybe most commonly forgotten (at least by practical behavior)
Forgiveness > ________.
A) So, in this story, I wonder about the paralyzed man. Here are his friends taking a huge risk in a tremendous act of faith, lowering the guy through someone's roof, into a room with Jesus and a bunch of Pharisees. When Jesus turns to him, and he sees the compassionate eyes that have been famous about Jesus, he must get really excited about getting healed... and then Jesus simply tells him he's forgiven...? Were his friends like, "For what? The roof thing?" But here's the admission of my own guilt: I've been just as blind to God's eternal gift, while completely distracted by something temporal. It's the most simple, but maybe most commonly forgotten (at least by practical behavior)
Forgiveness > ________.
P) Father, forgive my ungrateful heart. I'm afraid that, in the assurance of Your eternally given gift of forgiveness, I have taken it for granted all too often. I know that You have blessed me in amazing ways, here on earth, in a very temporal fashion, but I never want to lose sight of the beautifully simple Gospel. I am redeemed, my debt is paid, my sins are forgiven, and my place in heaven has been purchased by nothing less than the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Let my mind always be brought back to that eternal blessing, whenever I ask for anything so petty as a temporal blessing. In Jesus's name I pray, amen.
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