Overcoming - A Lame Lesson

Click on the scripture reference and read Luke 5:17-26 (NLT).

If you're like me, you've read this passage or heard it used in sermons or Bible lessons many times.  If you're new to the story, this is probably a "wow" moment for you to read of how a paralyzed man suddenly got up and walked away!  With which ever group you find yourself aligned, the healing power of Jesus was on great display.

Healing is such a needed thing in our world today.  People find themselves in need of healing from many varieties of circumstances.  While physical healing may be the most common thought, emotions, attitudes, finances, marriages, relationships, anxieties, and worries could also be among the much longer list of life conditions in which healing is sought.  There are many lessons that we can take away from this story, but there are only a few that I want to discuss in this particular blog, just simply because these are the things that God has been teaching me in recent days, not because they are the most important.

We could talk about the faith of the friends who brought this young man to Jesus.  We could also discuss the fact that the religious leaders were so busy judging the actions of the Son of God, that they became part of the problem of the friends being able to even get him to Jesus.  (How I could go expound on this point!!!  Religious people block the healing of others because of their pious attitudes all the time and it gives me a pain I can't locate!!!  We're so busy gossiping about the Pastor, talking about others, acting un-Christ-like, and ruining our testimonies among people who are seeking hope, that we contaminate the healing power of Christ in the eyes of those who desperately need Him!  But I digress.)

I want us first to pay attention to Jesus' first action regarding this young man.  Click here and read it again.  Jesus is the Son of God.  He is God in human form.  He knew the minds of the friends who brought this young man to Jesus.  He knew their intent.  He knew that the whole reason they went to all that trouble was to see their friend healed and their faith made sight.  So when the first words Jesus spoke to the young fella was that his sins were forgiven, I can imagine there were questions and feelings of disappointment among those friends.  But Jesus knew that the healing of which he was most in need was that of his sin condition, not his physical condition.  One way or the other, heaven or hell, his physical condition would be temporary.  But the healing of his sin condition would change his eternity.

I won't expound on the fact, but notice how when the religious leaders heard Jesus tell the young man that his sins were forgiven, they muttered among themselves calling Jesus blasphemous.  Scripture is clear that Jesus didn't audibly hear them, He "knew what they were thinking" and then addressed them.  God knows the heart of us all.  Even if we think we are being quiet enough, nonchalant enough, or secretive enough, He knows.

To be an overcomer, Jesus' next three things spoken to the young man become key lessons in our Christian walk.  First, Jesus said, "Stand up."  Please think his through with me for a moment.  Here is a young man who has NEVER used his legs!  His brain is not programmed to deliver the proper messages to his muscles to cause a response that would cause movement of any kind, much less, getting up!  This young man responded in faith to the command of God!  I can imagine that every inner voice within him was telling him "you can't do it," "this is an impossible command," "you'll be embarrassed and made a fool if you fail."  Any of those sound familiar?  But this is where many of us lose the battle and surrender to the enemy!  We are not created to be lame!  We are created to be overcomers!  Lesson #1: We must respond to the command of God in faith.

Jesus could have just told the young man to get up and go home.  For this young paralytic, that would have probably been quite enough.  But Jesus put another command in the middle.  He told him to, "pick up your mat."  See, when Jesus heals, He heals completely.  Jesus wanted this man to know that the very thing that used to mark his identity, was no longer even an issue!  The young man now carried the mat, not the other way around!  Jesus asked him to take it with him simply because Jesus wanted him to remember the place from which he came.  The mat became his testimony of a past that had been healed and changed by the power of God!  Lesson #2: We must accept that the thing that defined us is subservient to the definition God has given us through the blood of Christ - we are His kids!!!

And lastly, Jesus said to the young man, "go home."  Friends, this man not only got up and picked up his mat, he WALKED!!!  Do you get the power of this?!?  Babies have to learn to walk.  Accident victims have to be rehabilitated and once again learn to walk.  That is the natural order of things except breathing.  But not him!!!  Scripture uses the word "immediately" to describe how long it took for him to be able to put one foot in front of the other and get moving.  His muscles were probably about the size of a pencil.  He had never used them.  They had never responded to brain wave activity and command.  But they DID respond to the command of the Creator - the Great Physician!  Lesson #3: Simple obedience on our part brings about God's power to circumvent the natural so that we walk in the supernatural!

Let me say with authority that I have seen this very power in my life!  I could tell you stories that would blow your mind about God's favor and His move in my life!  Maybe I will soon.  But let's look at one more point, ok?  Other than the physical response to the command of Jesus, the young man did one more thing.  Read it by clicking here.

He praised.  He worshipped.  I can almost hear him shouting, "I'm HEALED!!!"  "I can walk!!!"  "I'm RUNNING!!!"  "Praise be to Jesus, He healed me!!!"  "All He did was speak the words and it HAPPENED!!!"  Lesson #4: Publicly give God the glory for the healing!  Oh how pride gets in the way with us nowadays.  We want to keep our mats under our cloaks hoping nobody will notice the small undeveloped muscles in our legs.  We want others to believe that we are strong with no weakness.  That we have the preverbal tiger by the tail - a demon slayer in our own right.  But that's just not the case.  We are what we are ONLY because of the healing power and forgiving, limitless grace of Christ.  How DARE we keep that silent!!!  When a world is begging, searching for hope under every rock they can find, when they only need the stone that the builder rejected - the Cornerstone - Jesus.  We are as the religious leaders in the house.  We become part of the blockade for those searching for Christ.  Stand aside.  Expose the mat.  Show some leg.  And then point to Christ.  We can overcome by this "lame" lesson.

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