Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Romans 13-14
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 9:2-6
Jesus: Rest assured, My son; your sins are forgiven.
Now some scribes and teachers of the law had been watching this whole scene.
Scribes and Teachers (to themselves): This man is blaspheming!
Though they had only spoken in low whispers among themselves, Jesus knew their thoughts.
Jesus: Why do you hold such hardness and wickedness in your hearts? Look, is it easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or “Get up and walk”? To make clear that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins (turning to the paralytic man on the mat), Get up, pick up your mat, and go home.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Jesus returns home and some men there had enough faith in Him to bring their paralytic friend to Him for healing. They believed Jesus could help their friend walk again. Comparing their faith to much of the faith I see today, that’s pretty astonishing. We don’t see that kind of faith much today. We don’t see the kind of healing evident in the New Testament church. Why is that? God hasn’t changed. His Spirit hasn’t changed. The maladies and malignancies of life haven’t changed. So what’s different?
I think we find it in the attitude of the scribes Jesus addresses that day. Note that Jesus’ first response wasn’t to heal the paralytic, but to take care of more important business. “Rest assured, My son; you sins are forgiven.” Jesus addressed the man’s sins and cleansed his heart. Forget the secondary physical frame the man dealt with every day, the important thing on Jesus’ mind was to remake his heart. To bring him into God’s kingdom. To adopt him into the Family. To give the paralytic the thing he needed most, forgiveness.
But the scribes and teachers of the law took offense at Jesus’ words. They didn’t believe He could forgive sins. They didn’t believe the testimony of others who felt the cleansing power of His touch and His words of forgiveness. They didn’t believe He was truly the Son of God. Neither did they believe Jesus could make the paralytic walk. They came for the show, they came to trap Him in His words, the came to find out what all the fuss was about. But they didn’t believe in this Jesus who people were saying was the Messiah.
Is that what’s wrong with us today? Is that why we’re not seeing miracles today? Do we really believe He is who He says He is? I wonder. If we as Christians really believe Jesus is God incarnate, the Son of God. If we truly believe the only way to heaven is through forgiveness of our sins and obeying His commands, then why don’t we obey Him? Why don’t we do what He asks? Why do we hold back? Why do we fail to love each other? Why do we fail to believe? Why do we fail to worship Him and honor Him? Why do we fail to visit Him each day and learn more about Him through the study of His word?
Do we really believe in Jesus, the Son of God? Maybe we don’t see the New Testament church miracles because we don’t want to see them. Maybe we really don’t want to let God come upon us the way He did then. There’s some danger involved in letting loose and letting God have full control of your church, you know. Remember Ananias and Sophira? They lied about their giving and God struck them dead! Remember Silas, the sorcerer? God blinded him for his attempts at playing Christian. Certainly the early church saw miracles happen in their midsts, but God executed His wrath on the unfaithful in powerful ways as well. Maybe we’re afraid to let God do His mighty works in us because we’re afraid to let Him in the door.
Maybe we’re afraid of what God will see in us if we let Him look inside. We shouldn’t be afraid of what He sees, though. He already knows. Maybe we’re really afraid of what we’ll see. We might find just how broken and desperate and needy and sinful we really are. Maybe we’ll find how far we are from Him and find we must fall on our face before Him in true repentance before He can do any work in us or through us.
Maybe our faith is too much like the scribes and the teachers of the law and not enough like the four men who struggles through those hillsides with their paralytic friend to find their way to Jesus. Maybe we need to find a quiet place to let God turn His searchlight on our hearts and let us see ourselves as He sees us.
Can miracles happen today the way they did when Jesus walk alongside us? He told His disciples they would do greater things than He did. And they did with the power of His Spirit resident in them. God hasn’t changed, Jesus hasn’t changed, His Spirit hasn’t changed. What’s changed? Maybe it’s our willingness to just let Him have His way in our life. Complete and total control. That’s what He wants. And when He has it, we’ll see miracles happen again.
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