Persistent Faith
This devotional considers Luke 5:17-26 and 11:5-8.
Some men brought a paralyzed man on a mat to Jesus. But the way they tried to approach him wasn’t working, so they tried another way. This brings me a lot of encouragement today, for a couple of reasons. The first is regarding prayer. As believers, we generally know how to go to God in prayer for something, but we at times get easily discouraged when the thing we’re believing for doesn’t happen the way we envision, including in the timeframe we desire. Then thoughts about whether it’s the Lord’s will or whether he even cares come to mind.
As a teenager, I used to hear people joking about God being busy, sleeping or on the other line—just overall unavailable and uncaring. In this account, Jesus was there, but the way to him was blocked. He was busy and physically unavailable. All kinds of people from his hometown in Galilee and from Jerusalem and other parts of Judea had come to hear him teach and see him heal the sick. It seemed like a crusade. And this paralyzed man may not have been the only one, and certainly not the only person in need of healing.
When Jesus taught the disciples to pray, he told a story about the shameless audacity of asking a friend for bread in the middle of the night, despite the friend being inconvenienced and upset. He received the bread, though. Think about what it took for these men to get the paralyzed man healed. Their choice didn’t consider whether Jesus cared. They weren’t deterred by all the other people clamoring to get the help they needed. They didn’t even care about the destruction of private property. They went up on the roof, dug a hole and lowered the man right in front of Jesus.
Now, this kind of persistence for our own needs I understand. The desperation for God to answer for someone else, though, is part of the beauty of this story. The extent to which they went for this man is more than touching. Jesus saw it as faith, and forgave the man of his sins. When Jesus commissioned us to go and make disciples, I think he had this kind of shameless audacity in mind. Persistence in bringing to Jesus those who carry the weight of their sin is the second way I’m encouraged today—challenged, really. How can we expend ourselves for the Gospel of Jesus? Who can we serve, and how far can we go to get people right in front of Jesus for forgiveness, healing and a new life?
Please help us, Lord, to be like these men of faith who stopped at nothing so that someone would have a life-changing, soul-healing encounter with you.
Amen.