And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door; and He was speaking the word to them. And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men. Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. And Jesus seeing their faith *said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”-Mark 2:2-5 emphasis mine.
Have you ever thought about your faith affecting your friends walk with God? On the surface that seems obvious. You can’t help others walk with God if you aren’t close with Him. But have you really given it thought? We know logically that our actions can change how people view Christianity as someone outside the faith. How often do we consider our actions and the result of those actions when it comes to the people closest to us?
This passage in Mark is one of the reasons I often tell students that the people they call friends matter. Those people will either help them grow closer to God or drag them away. There is no in between. Usually, I tell them to be someone that helps their friends grow closer to Jesus every day. Hold each other accountable for that walk. The paralytic man’s friends literally carried him to Jesus because he couldn’t get there. They took a roof apart so he could meet Jesus. That is the kind of friend we need to have and be ourselves. The reason I emphasized the words they/their above is because this was a conscious choice by these men to do this and their willingness to do whatever it took ultimately led to him being healed and a crowd of people seeing Jesus do an amazing work that resulted in the glorification of God.
It is easy to think small actions in our faith don’t amount to much. But they do. This wasn’t a small act, but it did start with a single decision. One decision changed everything for this man. How different would we see our personal walks with God if we viewed them through a lens of how our decisions can change things for others? Would we pray more? Not just in terms of praying on behalf of others asking for God to move in their situations but asking God to move through us to help them. These men didn’t simply seek Jesus to heal their friend, they carried him there themselves. This is faith in action. Would we spend time alone studying God’s word? Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not advocating a list of things to do so we can check them off and say we have spent time with God. I mean really and truly allocated specific time away from distraction to spend time with him because we know we need to, and we want to do so.
If we don’t spend time doing that we can’t expect to be much help because you can’t give what you don’t have. If I’m neglecting studying the word of God and praying, I’m not going to be a help to those around me. I’m certainly not going to be much help to the students. There is a disconnect there and even if I wanted to help them I wouldn’t be able to, not at the level they deserve. My faith is personal, but it has public implications to the rest of the body of Christ. Treating it as such changes things. How I treat my walk with God will ripple out and affect those closest to me. It will either help them grow closer to Jesus or pull them away.
Most of the time I’m telling students to make sure they have friends that will carry them to Jesus when they can’t do it themselves. As we studied this passage last night and the students were asked about how others viewed them because of their walk with God this whole idea kept rolling around in my head. Not that it isn’t important to be a good friend and to have the right friends, it most definitely is. But the idea that faith, while personal, has implications that will for better or worse have a bearing on the people we choose to call friends. The body cannot function as it should if its members aren’t healthy. We weren’t meant to do life alone. But doing this life together requires everyone to do their part. Personal time with God should change us but it will also allow us to help those we love. It is much easier to see the needs of others when we aren’t wrapped up in ourselves. There is no better way to see those needs than to spend time focusing on God. These men could have easily left the paralytic man altogether or left him outside so they could have gotten close to Jesus themselves. Instead, they put him first and made sure he met Jesus. Their faith in this man they’d heard stories about moved Jesus and their friend was healed.
My faith matters not just for my own walk with God but for those that I am close to. We are in community and called the body of Christ for a reason. We need each other.
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