And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.” Matthew 9:2.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Jesus, though He stayed, compared to My apostle Paul, in a relatively small area during His earthly sojourn during the three years of His public ministry, His life, death, resurrection, and ascension have had a far-reaching, all encompassing, never ending, eternal impact. Because He is your High Priest forever, His ministry will never end. He saves you to the uttermost. In Him I have lavished My grace on you for all the ages to come.
And even during those three years of public ministry, He had conversations with so many people that My beloved John rightly wrote under inspiration of My Spirit that if all that Jesus did and said during those years was recorded there would not be enough books in the world to contain them. And yet the Bible, spanning from the beginning to the end of time as you know it now, measured by days, nights, hours, and minutes, is a relatively small book. What does that tell you? That every Word in it is important, is there for a reason, and is for revelation, edification, impartation, and emancipation.
All Scripture is inspired by God (God breathed) and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
So know this: the conversations of Jesus that are recorded are important for you to know.
Today let us look at a conversation Jesus had that broke right into the middle of His teaching a group of Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. Luke 5:17. This was an important gathering early in His ministry. They were coming to truly discern what His teaching was about. Some came with open hearts, some came with closed and stony hearts that were ready to find fault and scandal. But others were inclined to hear from Him what He had to say and check it out with Scripture. This was a group that considered themselves of a class above the “common” people. The felt they knew Me and My Word and looked down at others less trained in the Law. They did not regard Jesus as of their class and yet He spoke with far more authority and seemed to know all the answers they were unable to provide. They also knew He healed people in miraculous ways and cast out demons.
While the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them. Demons also were coming out of many, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But rebuking them, He would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ. Matthew 8:40-41.
But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. Luke 5:15.
So there were high expectations as well as those who were critical of His ministry. But I tell you something that was always there when Jesus was, My power was present for Jesus to perform healing.
One day He was teaching; and there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the LORD was present for Him to perform healing. Luke 5:17.
Every person in that gathering could have received that power flowing from within Him by faith and been healed and made whole. But I only tell you that one man got healed that day though the house was crowded. What does that tell you? The crowd was devoid of faith.
What was that power that was present to heal? The power of God. But Jesus had emptied Himself of His powers as God when He became flesh in the womb of the virgin Mary.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9.
On the day Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John to begin His public ministry to save you, something wonderful happened. I opened Heaven and a portal opened to the earth. And thus the Holy Spirit descended from Heaven like a dove and rested on Him and REMAINED upon Him. He was clothed in power from on High as you, when born again from above, can also be. And of course, since He was born from above, He always had the Holy Spirit dwelling within.
And John the Baptist identified Jesus when he saw the Spirit descend but that told him two things: Jesus came to fulfill the Lamb that Abraham prophesied, the Passover confirmed, and the sacrifices in the tabernacle of Moses foretold the one perfect sacrifice of Jesus, taking away your sins and that Jesus is My Son.
The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water.” John testified saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God. John 1:29-34.
That day at the Jordan River, I anointed Him as Messiah and Lord, with the Holy Spirit and POWER and He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil. Acts 10:38.
When Jesus was on earth, no one else was indwelt by the Holy Spirit because until He took all your sins on Himself that night in the Garden of Gethsemane and died to set you free of them, no person could be born again from above and have a living spirit. Your spirits, due to Adam’s rejection of My Word and submission to the perishable seed of lies died to Me in his spirit and came alive to sin. That sin had to be removed before you could operate in the spirit again, as My Son explained in his conversation with Nicodemus that we covered in our last Life Lesson.
So at the time of Jesus, if you wanted to come in contact with My power, you had to get near Jesus, and that is why the crowds would throng Him and seek to touch Him. And that was why He told the apostles it would be an advantage for them if He returned to Me and sent them the gift of the Holy Spirit, then, “the power of the LORD would be present for each one of them to perform healing.”
Yes, now that same power resides in you who have received Him as Lord and been born again from above. It is time you released it and did what Jesus told you to do. To what am I referring? To cast out demons in His name and lay your hands on the sick so they will recover. Mark 16:17. My power can flow through you by faith as it did in Jesus. My healing power is there to heal wherever you are. And Peter got so full of it by faith that even his shadow would heal peple as he passed by. My power was present for him to perfrom healing.
But that day in Jesus’ home where the Pharisees and teachers of the law had gathered, yes, it was at the home of Jesus in Capernaum, Mark, in describing the same event writes:
When He had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that He was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door; and He was speaking the Word to them. Mark 2:1-2.
Now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, He withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, He came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light, and those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, upon them a Light dawned.” Mark 4:12-16.
There was a large crowd filling the house. And four men came bringing a paralytic lying on a pallet, and they were trying to bring him in and lay him in front of Jesus. But not finding any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. They were earnest about healing, they desired it enough to keep looking for a way, despite the crowded house, to get the man before Jesus. And they were fully persuaded in their hearts if they got their friend in front of Jesus, Jesus would heal him. And faith does not disappoint.
And Jesus. seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Mark 2:5.
The man and his friends had faith for healing but this time in healing Jesus referred to the man’s sins. If you are in deep guilt and shame over your sins, you block healing because you deem yourself undeserving of being healed. Before the healing could enter in, the sins had to be out of the way. And you notice, Jesus called him “Son.” Jesus is referring to Covenant, the Covenant of Abraham, the Covenant by faith. And under that Covenant I identified Myself to the Israelites just come out of Egypt through the Red Sea as the LORD your healer. And these were the people who had just escaped the destroyer by the blood of the Lamb on their doorposts and lintels. Healing and the forgiveness of sins are tied together. Jesus bore your illnesses and your pains as well as your sins, guilt and shame all in the one perfect sacrifice once for all. Isaiah 53:1-6; Psalm 103:1-5.
But this set off the crowd. They put up with healing if it was not on Shabbat but for a Man to forgive sins was beyond what they could countenance. They did not know they were looking at the true Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. They were seeing the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 standing before their eyes.
But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?” Immediately Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, “Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.” And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.” Mark 2:6-12; Luke 5:18-26l
Jesus knew their thoughts, a Word of Knowledge. He operated in the gifts of the Spirit and so can you. But He called both healing and forgiving “easy.” And you should too. It is all flowing from One and the same Spirit for I AM love, and love heals and love forgives but love does it justly and legally. And I did that with My Son as your scapegoat.
And what happened? The man was released from his sins and healed. Did Jesus pray a long drawn out prayer begging Me to heal the man? No, My power was present for HIM to heal. He called those things that be not as they be and so it was. He knew My Will and it prospered in His hands. He simply but My Will backed by My power released by His faith to work: He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.” And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone.”
And the result? Joy, pure joy in having My power and My prayers there for you.
And the very next conversation after that is where He calls “Matthew” to follow Him.
As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He *said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him. Matthew 9:8
I love you. In Christ I have blessed with the Holy Spirit and POWER. Use it with honor and love and I will reward you.