MARK DEVOTIONS
[Please do read the passage before (or after) reading the devotion.]
The place was full, and there seemed no way the paralytic could get to Jesus. How wonderful to have four friends that were caring enough to make the effort, have the imagination, possibly incur the wrath and expenses from the house owners, and send him down through a hole in the roof so that he could meet Jesus! It is interesting, but Jesus sees their faith and does two things for the paralyzed man – forgives his sins (his spiritual need) and then heals him (his physical need). Please don’t think that Jesus is saying that our sickness is because of our sins. He recognizes the legitimacy of both needs, yet he knew that the spiritual need (that always involves forgiveness in some form or the other) is far more serious, and the consequences of not addressing them far more terrible than anything else. Do you know your spiritual need that he is waiting to heal?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for the people in my life that have done everything possible to bring me to your presence so that you can touch me. Forgive me for being so ungrateful for their caring, so unmindful of their faith, and so resistant to your work of transformation in my life. Not only do I want to be “made whole”, I want to be a friend to someone else that needs you as well. So here I am: I open my life to your working, O Holy Spirit. Amen.
