149 of 365 - True Healing

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Mark 2:5

“Son, your sins are forgiven,” Jesus says.

Wait, what?!? …the friends of the paralyzed man who carried him to Jesus and lowered him through the roof must be thinking. They came for healing, not forgiveness of sins.

Jesus always knows what we truly need. The heart of all of our hurt and suffering and deepest need is rooted in sin. It isn’t that this man’s health is directly related to his sin, it is that ALL OF US have a sin issue that only Jesus can fix.
 
Jesus went there first because any other secondary need addressed will never bring us peace and wholeness. And THEN Jesus healed his physical need, “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home” (Mark 2:11).

​Jesus healed his soul and then healed his body, enabling him to walk in freedom out of the crowded room he moments before needed his friends to lower him into.

A sweet friend, Julie Seals, summed it up perfectly, “where the world says, ‘you made your bed, now lie in it.’ Jesus says, ‘Rise! Take up your bed and walk.’”

Jesus says the same to us: “Your sins are forgiven….Rise!....take up your bed and walk.”  Pick up that thing you keep laying in and leaning on, and follow me. Where the world seeks to condemn, Jesus seeks to redeem.
 
Jesus stands ready to meet all of our needs, starting with the most pressing one of our sins. Rise! Walk in freedom.

Questions: How do you think “the world” (people you know, our culture in general) looks at sin? How does this compare to Jesus?