Faithbase

Okie dokie, all right. If you're following along with the chosen, we are season one, episode six, and we start to see that Jesus starts to perform miracles. But one of them is a little bit more infamous, not even just in the show, but like in general than the others. And it's when Jesus heals a paralyzed man. And so it's Mark 2 verses 1 through 13. And basically, Jesus is gathered with people and is teaching and word about him is beginning to spread. And so they're bringing the sick and asking for healing. But the crowd had grown so big, like there was literally no room as this group of four friends walks up, carrying their friend who was paralyzed on a mat. They can't get to him. So they climb on top of the roof, move some stuff over and lower their friend right in front of Jesus. Because they were, they just knew this was their shot at healing their friend. And so seeing this, Jesus, they removed the roof above him and after digging through it, they lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying. Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven. Key thing here, and we're going to circle back. Seeing their faith, not even the paralytic's faith, seeing their friend's faith to go to the trouble that they were going to. I mean, they obviously believed and Jesus tells them, no, your sins are forgiven. So some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, why does he speak like this? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Right away, Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were thinking like this within themselves and said to them, why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to a paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up, take your mat and walk. But so that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He told the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home. Immediately he got up, took his mat and went out in front of everyone. As a result, they were all astounded and gave glory to God saying, we have never seen anything like this. Was the man paralyzed because of his sin? That is what a lot of people interpret. That is not how I have, in my studying, that is not how I have interpreted it. Jesus tells him, your sins are forgiven because of faith. People start questioning him and he's like, okay, whoa, if that's not a big deal, let me show you what is a big deal. I can tell him to get up and walk. I like to think that maybe they just totally interrupted Jesus when he was about to give a spiel as he said that they were forgiven, he was forgiven, but we don't know. But I believe that they interrupted him with these thoughts and he's thinking, again, humans are so short-sighted. In our flesh, we cannot think of anything but the right now. Jesus is saying, I could tell him to get up and move like that, but the gift of forgiveness, the gift of eternal life, that is what is the most important miracle of all. And it is freely available to everybody. And what do you have to do to earn it? The friends lowered him into a house because of their faith. It literally just comes down to faith. They didn't have to get anything right. They didn't have to perform any rituals. They didn't have to go get cleaned and purified. All of the things that religion can tell us to do overcrowds the simplicity of belief in Jesus equates to eternal life, which is not just an eternity. It means abundant, beautiful, fulfilling life while you're here. It starts instantly. And we too can go out glorifying God saying, can't even believe it.