Faith's Actions

April 21, 2017

Devotions:

        “And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, "Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven." And some of the scribes said to themselves, "This fellow blasphemes." And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, "Why are you thinking evil in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" -then He said to the paralytic, "Get up, pick up your bed and go home." And he got up and went home. But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭9:2-8‬ ‭NASB‬‬

        The man that they brought to Jesus was paralyzed and could not get up. Jesus first dealt with the spiritual issue, sins, they were forgiven.  Then Jesus tells him another seemingly impossible thing, to get up, pick up his bed and go home, walk.  The man probably had all kinds of thoughts going through his head, like I cannot walk.  Did not Jesus see that they had to carry me here on a stretcher?  It is impossible.  Even though it was impossible, the man put forth an effort.  Just trying to act on the word of God caused the power of God to come upon him and heal him.  If he had just stayed there and said, cannot you see, Jesus that it is impossible for me to walk, they had to carry me here.  The man would have stayed in the same paralytic condition. But because he acted on what Jesus said because he believed it, he got healed.  When we start acting on the word of God then we will see results. But as long as we are waiting on God to do something, nothing will happen. Why? Because God has already done everything necessary to meet our need and we just need to act like God cannot lie and His word is true. It is the doer of the word of God that is blessed.