S166P8 – The good disciple: a fierce pursuit
Mk. 2:3-5
Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”
History has given us many visionaries and geniuses whose works have changed life dramatically for generations in the future. Some of them stumbled upon their discoveries without knowing what exactly they had found or created. Others had a dream for a specific outcome but had to work through error after error before seeing their idea come to life. Not everything that is possible today was possible when first attempted. One thing that has given us much of the technology we have today is persistence, when the spark of an idea is precious enough and possible enough to pursue until it becomes a reality. The question is whether this is how we pursue Jesus today.
The scriptures do not tell us who these four men were, but they followed Christ closely enough to believe in his healing power. We can surmise that they were somehow connected to the man on the bed, and it seems that they had a desire to see him healed by Jesus. Whether they wear friends, family or just kind strangers, they clearly agreed that simply trying to reach Christ was not enough; they had to encounter his power. Their pursuit of Jesus and his power was rather extreme, and we see other examples of people willing to go to great lengths just to touch the hem of his garment. While Jesus is not in a physical place today for us to pursue as these men did, we have a spiritual pursuit of Christ that we should navigate the same way.
Our pursuit of Christ can include bringing others to him just as these men did. We might bring them to him through prayer or through evangelism aimed at seeing a heart changed. We also pursue the power of Christ to operate in us as well as the character of Christ to bear good fruit in our lives. These pursuits are not always easy or successful, but the important thing is that we continue until we see it. Whether we have to make a way where it seems impossible, or we have to crawl with our faces in the dirt, it should be worth it to chase Christ and find all that He has for us. Father, fill us with the same desire that these four men had, to go to whatever lengths necessary to see the power of your Son manifested.