When Others Cannot Walk

Matthew 9:2
"When Jesus saw THEIR faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Take heart son; your sins are forgiven'"

My daughter is only 2.  Some of the difficulties of being only 2 is that she walks veeerrrryyyyy slowly.  Even when she is motoring along at a decent pace, it never lasts long, because there are too many distractions.  We took a family walk on the beach yesterday and about 1 minute in I realized that she was going to have to get carried if we were going to get anywhere.

For what felt like a long long long walk, we journeyed over the beautiful white sands.  My wife claims we didn't walk that far, but she didn't have a 30 pound toddler squirming on her shoulders.  To make matters worse, that precocious little girl did not appropriately align her weight with my shoulders, she leaned hard against my head, putting all the strain on my neck.  This morning, I have a sore neck. 

It was worth it!

She can't get very far on her own.  If we had just kept walking at a pace we were comfortable with, we would have lost her about 2 minutes into the walk.  We would have reached our destination, but it wouldn't be the same without my little princess.  Though it wasn't "easy", I wouldn't give up her being with me for anything.  Not to mention, that the reason she leaned so hard on my head was because she kept giving it hugs!

Jesus took notice of THEIR faith.  There was only one man in this story who was a paralytic, but Jesus recognized the faith of the men who carried their friend.  We actually do not hear any sort of commendation from Jesus to these faithful friends, He gets right to the work of forgiving and healing. 

We so often treat faith as an individualistic experience.  We walk alone.  We grow alone.  We minister alone. 

Even if there is someone else in the room.

I believe this little snapshot of friendship gives us a real convicting challenge.  Are we willing to carry those in our lives to a place where they can experience saving faith?  No one journeys towards Christ alone in a closet secretly.  It is most often through the loving encouragement and fellowship of those who are currently "stronger" that leads us to healing.

A couple of examples of people you should be willing to "carry":

1)  The hurting friend.  Something is going on in their life that causes them to just crumple to the floor.  Are you wrapping your arms around them and being the friend they need to get through "this".

2)  The backsliding friend.  Are you willing to speak truth into their life?  To help them get on track with truth and life?  The friend in sin often knows it.  They just get lost in it.  Do you love them enough to enter into their experience and walk them back?

3)  The unbelieving friend.  You can lead a horse to water.......It is true that you can't make anyone, through your power, come to Christ, but you can love them so deeply and selflessly that they see Christ's truth come near because you have "carried" them to Him through your love for them.

Who are you willing to "carry"? 

How about yourself?  Do you know that you need to be carried towards Jesus more than you care to admit?  You cannot just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get yourself there.  So often our own weaknesses and sins get our feet stuck...paralyzed...somewhere.  Who are you letting into your life to carry you when you can't pick up your feet?

Astonishing Jesus

Matthew 8:8-10
⁸ The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

There are many different ways my kids approach me when they need something.  The "how" often is much more important than the "why."  Consciously or not, we all do a bit of quick thinking evaluation of what is really going on when someone approaches us for something.  Attitude plays the largest role in how we discern the heart behind the request. 

When my son approaches me angrily I know before I even hear his words that it is going to be a request most likely rooted in selfishness.  His anger betrays his heart.  Sure, it might be legitimate that he wants "this", but his attitude informs me that it is all about him and God help those who do not bow to his wishes.  At that moment I exist, in his head, to simply be a conduit for achieving his self-centered desires. 

On the other hand, when he approaches me quietly and meekly, I know that there is a much different heart going on.  He isn't coming to demand, but instead to ask for help from the one person he knows is capable of helping him.  Usually, this approach follows earnest self-attempts to do whatever it is he wanted.  And when he realizes that he can't accomplish what he wants without his daddy, he comes hoping for help, knowing that I am capable.

When we read this account of the Centurion coming to Jesus to heal his servant we see a man who is outside of the Jewish community, but having a faith that amazed Jesus.  How would you like to have a faith that Jesus is amazed by?  All scripture is for our edification and so what can we take from this and apply to ourselves. 

I see two important parts to the visible display of the Centurions faith:

1)  Humility. 

"I do not deserve" was such a great line.  How many times I approach God with demands and expectations.  We treat God like a Holy Vending machine so easily.  Here are my prayer inputs....now....where are my goodies?!?! 

We cannot hope to approach the cross on our feet.  The only way forward is on our knees.  The very act of living with self-righteous justification towards our right to approach God with demands shows how far our hearts are truly from God.

Is God simply existing to be a conduit for providing for our desires, or, is He a Holy and Righteous King who exists not for our pleasure, but His own?


2)  Belief in the authority and power of Christ.

The Centurion doesn't just say, "do you think you can do this".  He basically says, "I know you can with no more than a word". 

I am about as far from the "name it claim it" camp as one can possibly be.  So, don't take this the wrong way.  But we live so often paralyzed in fear that God isn't who He says He is.  We do not live in the freedom and satisfaction of knowing that God is in control and is working all things to the good of those who love Him. 

We have a very limiting view of the problems we do have, and, the problems we may have.  They consume us, we allow anxiety and worry to rob us of hope and peace.  Do you know that there is a Limitless God who loves you beyond measure?  No matter the immediately "felt" realities of the difficulties in life, our hope is not in "today", but the forever Tomorrows.

The Centurion isn't just hoping that Jesus is who He says He is.  He trusts it completely, and humbly places his hope in Christs' hands.


How about you?  Let me challenge you, and me, to pursue a heart that is rooted in Trusting Humility.  Jesus is who He says He is.  And, we are who He says we are.  We have no right to ask Him for anything.  But He invites us to come to Him out of love and see that He is indeed who He promised He would be.

Savior

Healer

God With Us

King

Don't judge me, This is a pretty amazing Astonished Jesus

Justification By Faith

This is a powerful quote that was too long for twitter...

"Thus it is that justification is ascribed to faith, because it is by faith that we receive Christ; and thus it is by faith only, and not by any other grace.  Faith is peculiarly a receiving grace which none other is.  Were we said to be justified by repentance, by love, or by any other grace, it would convey to us the idea of something good in us being the consideration on which the blessing was bestowed; but justification by faith conveys no such idea"
-  Andrew Fuller  The Complete Works of Reverend Andrew Fuller, vol 1ed.

I came across this quote in the book "Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God" by John Piper and just had to share it.

Today it is so common to hear the refrain, "God will save those who are truly loving, or truly "this" or "that" "  Or some other sort of high ideal sounding gobbly goop.  What Fuller puts so succinctly here is that there is nothing we do(because there is nothing we CAN do) that is the basis of salvation.  Only by receiving, through Faith, the finished work of Christ will we be saved. 

So lets have quite enough of that watered down universalism that parades itself about as "caring" Christianity.  To love is to be truthful.  And the truth is only Faith in Christ can save.  Everything else leads to destruction.

Living in the Moment, but never YOLO....

Matthew 6:27
"Who of you by worrying can add a single our to his life?"

I recently heard a celebrity share about meeting a fan a while back.  The fan never took his eyes of his phone screen as he taped and took pictures of the whole brief meeting.  Wasn't even able to shake hands well because he wasn't looking.  The celebrity was really taken aback by the whole thing.  Didn't you want to meet me?  You can look at pictures of me online anytime you want!!

As a people, we have lost the simple enjoyment of being in the moment.  Every brief experience is only a reflection of something that has come before, or, a prelude to something tomorrow.  We grow restless.  Discontent.  Frustrated.  And the more we refuse to embrace the moment, the more we lose that moment forever. 

A recent study on memory showed that all this constant picture taking of events that we all like to do actually is hampering our ability to create actual memories.  Do you get that?  Taking pictures to have a memory is causing you to actually not have a real memory.  Only a photograph that becomes you looking at someone else's life.

We never live in the moment.  Either the past holds us captive, or, anxiety and dreams about the future diminish our "nows".  Think about it.  How many moments today did you find yourself reliving some past event that you regret(or enjoyed)?  How much energy did you put forth to contemplating scenarios about "tomorrow" that you have little to no control over?  And the more we do that, replay sparkly HD memory films, the more we resent how dull it currently is. 

If only it was yesterday........ 

Tomorrow can't come soon enough.....

Jesus shouts out through the din.  He says, "YOU HAVE NO CONTROL.....YOU MAY VERY WELL DIE TONIGHT!"  But also, within that, he gently encourages us...."God is the source of your hope, and HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN TODAY!"

Something that is disgustingly popular today is the phraise, "YOLO", or, "You Only Live Once".  It's meant to be a sort of rallying cry to just be crazy right now because who knows what might happen to you.  And someone might be reading this and thinking, "Yah, Jesus, the original YOLO'er!".  If you are thinking that, please slap yourself. 

This is not Jesus telling you to just embrace the crazy side of you and do something outlandish.  The context is about finding God in each moment that you have.  Giving Him your past pains and your future frets.  To live in the freedom of the now knowing that He is going to do what is right for you ALWAYS.

There is a powerful shift that takes place when we begin to live in the moment the way Jesus calls us to. 

When God owns our now, our past begins to reveal that patterns of hope and love that He was laying down for us, even while we were His enemies.  And our past becomes a testimony of Joy found in trials.

When God owns our now, our future becomes a wide open tapestry that is not controlled or defined by any one experience, event, relationship, or pain.  And our future no longer becomes something we have to try to make happen, but simply to experience.

You are not the person you were yesterday.  You are not the person  you will be tomorrow.  Don't give those people to God.  Give Him who you are right now.  And they will become His as well.