Yesterday we talked about how Jesus forgave the parapalegic so that he could repent. He was brought to Jesus by his friends. On Steemit we have people we follow who are in some way our friends. Let's look at what the friends of the paralpalegic did for their friend for just a few minutes.
The Friends
Of all the wonderful gifts that God has given us, one of the greatest is friendship. Think about the persons who are your friends or to whom you are a friend. When we’re going through some emotional or physical trial of life, friends can help to reassure us that God is there with us, and we don’t have to face any obstacle life throws in our path alone.
The parapalecs friends have heard that Jesus, the evangelist from Nazareth who has the reputation of being able to cure the sick, is visiting their town. They’ve tried everything else to help their friend, why not let Jesus have a crack at it? So they rig up a stretcher and carry their friend to the place where Jesus is staying. But when they get near the house, they can’t even see the doorway for the crowd of people gathered outside. What are they going to do now? How about you, would you be willing to carry your friend to Jesus…to dig a hole in someone’s roof and drop your friend in?
Someone says, “Well, we might as well give up and go home. We’ll never even get close to Jesus with all these people around him.” But this is their friend on that stretcher, so they’re determined to find a way. As they gaze around, helplessly searching for a glimmer of an idea, their eyes wander up to the roof of the house. If there was just some way to get up there and lower him down through the roof.... That’s it! You go around to the back of the house to climb up on the roof. With ropes attached to the stretcher, you hoist your sick friend up. Okay, now that we’re here, how do we get him down through the roof? Well, we’ll just have to cut a hole in the roof. Don’t worry, Mr. Homeowner, we’ll fix it later. What if it was your house…full of strangers, now with a hole in the roof and mud all over the house?
You lower yourself through the hole and direct your friends to lower the stretcher. As you look around the room, you see various emotions at play on the faces of those gathered inside the house - anger at having dirt thrown on their heads as you cut that hole in the roof; surprise that someone would be so bold as to attempt this; annoyance at this intrusion on their privacy; maybe even amusement. “Do you believe what these guys just did? Isn’t that a hoot?” Are you that kind of friend? Would you willing destroy someone’s roof to get to Jesus. How serious are you about getting to Jesus?
How serious about sharing Him with your friends?
