Fourth Day of Advent

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

The Wonder of What God Has Done Through His Son:

An Advent Devotional Guide

And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”  Mark 2:5

Imagine what kind of opportunity we have as Christians to do for others if we just have faith as in today’s Scripture.

Almost everyone knows this story, at least those who have ever been to Sunday School as a child. These men had a friend whom they cared about and who would never have been able to get to Jesus by himself. There is not even any indication that the cripple believed in Jesus! But his friends did! They literally raised the roof! They couldn’t get the stretcher through the crowd, so they made a hole in the ceiling and lowered him down to him.

I remember flannel-graph stories when I was a child, and how vividly they portrayed this crippled man suspended in mid-air as he was lowered to the feet of Christ! The flannel-graph may not have been as “high tech” as all the teaching tools we have today, but I can still see that man in my mind’s eye!

And what healed him? Not the cripple’s faith! The faith of the men who brought him! How many times are we asked to go to the Lord in prayer for someone’s neighbor who doesn’t go to church and probably doesn’t know the Lord? Do we realize that we can “raise the roof” and boldly go to Jesus with our concerns for that person? Is our faith great enough to expect Jesus to hear and answer our prayers favorably, not because we are good or because we speak well, but because we have faith to believe that Jesus cares and will act! Do we care enough to be “roof raisers?”

Father, make us people of faith, who will go to you to get help for those who need you, even those who do not know you. Amen

The Wonder of What God Has Done Through His Son:

An Advent Devotional Guide
prepared for First United Methodist Church of Homosassa, Florida
Winter 2009
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator