One day, while Jesus was preaching in a
house, some men brought one paralytic man. “Seeing their faith, He said to the
paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (Read Mark 2:1-12)
In not healing the man first, effectively
Jesus is saying sin is a greater problem than this man’s paralysis. Why? To
understand the answer, we need to understand why sin is such a bad problem
according to Jesus. The word sin in this passage literally means to miss the
mark—the mark of God’s perfect standards. Imagine an arrow moving in the air
and falling short of a target. That’s what sin is like, and all of us fall
short of God’s perfect standards all the time. The consequence of sin is
eternal separation from God, and this is what the Bible calls Hell.
The Greatest Gift :
Jesus knew how important it was that people
understood their sin. You see, this man’s paralysis is a physical picture of a
spiritual reality for us all. Spiritually, we are each as paralyzed by our sin
as the paralytic man. But listen to the heart of this passage, when Jesus said,
“So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive
sins,” Jesus tells him to rise up and walk—and he was totally healed. The
reason Jesus has authority to both forgive all sins and to heal any disease is
because, “God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us” (1 Corinthians 5:21).
He did this by dying on the cross. But like this paralytic, we must come to
Jesus and admit we are helpless in our sin without Him. We each must believe
that Jesus died for our sin and come and follow Jesus, whatever the cost.
Be Eternally Healed Today :
Jesus wants to do for you today what He did
for the paralyzed man 2,000 years ago. If you want Jesus to heal you from your
sin and have a place in heaven with Him when you die, you can pray a prayer
like this right now:
“Dear Lord, I want my sins forgiven. I
believe Jesus has the authority to forgive my sins because He is the Son of God
and died on the cross. I want to follow Jesus now, however difficult it might
be. Amen.”
May God heal you physically as well as
spiritually in Jesus name.
( Adapted from ‘ Be healed eternally’ by
GodLife.com)
