Thursday, March 22, 2018

don't put God in a box


Today we read about one of Jesus's miracles in the One Year Bible. The selection is from Luke 5:12-28. This is the well known story of the paralyzed man who tried to get to Jesus to be healed, but the crowds were too big. So his friends lowered him down through the roof. When Jesus saw THE FAITH OF HIS FRIENDS, He turned to the man and said, "Your sins are forgiven."

Now, stop and think about this. We can speculate and read our own beliefs into the story, saying to ourselves "Jesus knew the man's intentions and his mind, so He forgave his sins in response to the man's faith and request." But that's not what the story says. It says that Jesus saw his FRIENDS' faith, and forgave his sins.

That's not how we generally think that forgiveness works, is it? We think that God forgives our sins when we ourselves come to Him and repent of them and ask for forgiveness. But in this story, we are encouraged to pray for our friends. Because if this man's friends had faith, resulting in God forgiving his sins... then maybe we can pray for our friends, too. And who knows? Maybe God will forgive their sins because of OUR faith.

Let's not put God in our theology box, and think that He can only do what we believe in our theological system. Remember, with God, all things are possible.

God, thanks for reminding us that You don't belong in a box.

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