The dust swirled around the man as he lay there before the Master. It was a familiar taste in his mouth. Being lame from birth, he often tasted the dust of the passersby as he begged for his daily ration.
Like the serpent, forever cursed to partake of the dust, his life had been one of hardship, making due with the leavings of others due to his crippled condition.
But now, thanks to friends unwilling to leave him a victim to the palsy, he had been lowered down through the roof to lay before the Messiah. All of these people watching, he earnestly hoped against all he knew, that finally his suffering was at an end.
Lying there, he heard the words, “Arise, take up thy bed and walk.”
It was a desire he had felt since his early years. Time and time again as a child, he had attempted to lift himself, to no avail. Every attempt had ended miserably in excruciating pain and even worse regret.
If we had been in that room, most of us would have found Jesus’ words to be brash, insensitive, even cruel. How could he mock this man’s condition? Surely, every failure of this man’s past occurred to him as he lay before this crowd of onlookers.
Without even an outstretched hand, the Master had commanded an action from this man that seemingly everyone but Jesus knew was impossible for him to perform!
And, yet, in that moment of hope and earnest, desperate faith, the man, sick of the palsy, placed his hands on the floor to pull himself aright, and try once more what he had tried so many times and failed to do…
The room hushed into silence as his feverish efforts became the focus… some winced as they watched him painstakingly pull one foot around beneath himself; then the next. Others leaned forward, straining to see the spectacle as he rose to his knees. Gasps filled the air as he steadied himself, kneeling on one knee now. The strength was holding this time!
In awe and wonder, he stood to his feet! This time, the strength was there! The legs were straight; the coordination worked!
As if in a dream, he folded his bed as commanded and took his first steps into a completely new life: fully healed!
As God said in Isaiah 55:9, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
If this man had been in our care, we would shy away from ordering a crippled man to stand, much less do any sort of labor; and yet, it was this very action, spurred on by the man’s faith, that unleashed the miraculous in his life.
Ephesians 3:20-21 clarifies that our God is “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,” but it is “according to the power that worketh in us.”
It is not our physical prowess, our skills, our talents, or our fleshly abilities; it is simply the actions of a person urged on by faith!
In short, man is part of the miracle!
Jesus indeed healed the man sick of the palsy, but that man had to take that first step of faith. There was action required of the man to embrace, to experience, and to walk in his healing.
Jesus indeed healed the man sick of the palsy, but that man had to take that first step of faith.
Genessa Torsy
Consider the blind man of Bethsaida. Jesus spat on the ground, formed two balls of mud, and placed them on the man’s eyes. No, the man didn’t roll the mud himself, but there had to be a willingness, a surrender to what the Master was doing for him to receive his healing. There had to be a moment when the blind man realized that everything he himself had tried had failed…and even though Christ’s methods seemed counter-intuitive, he had to surrender himself into the hands of the Master.
Again, man had to be part of the miracle!
Even with the centurion whose son lay dying, when Jesus told him to return home for his son “liveth,” there was a faith element required of that man to see the miraculous!
Throughout the scriptures, miracles were not simply the mighty acts of God upon creation, but true miracles always required mankind to play a role.
It was and still is a fusing of the Divine and mankind, the matchless power of deity mixed with the faith and obedience of the frail, that births the miraculous.
For Moses and the children of Israel, God indeed promised them a land flowing with milk and honey. It was there. It existed. God cannot lie. It was there for the taking: great abundance, houses they didn’t build, vineyards they didn’t plant…but they had to take the steps across the Jordan River to POSSESS the land!
Man must first become the willing vessel for God to work through; then, the miraculous can take place!
Man must first become the willing vessel for God to work through; then, the miraculous can take place!
Genessa Torsy
In the case of Lazarus, Jesus indeed revived him. Jesus called him from the grave and true to God’s Word, Lazarus walked out of the tomb. But, notice, Jesus commanded those around him, “Loose him and let him go.” There was a part that the people had to play!
I earnestly believe we stand in the presence of miracles everyday. The healing, the deliverance, the overcoming power, the signs and wonders are already there… God is just waiting on someone to loose them from the realm of the Spirit and let them manifest!
We need, more than ever before, to realize the role we play in end time revival.
We must, in this day, step out in faith, take up our sick beds, and walk in the Word that “by His stripes, we are healed.”
We must be the warriors, who, being given such “great and precious promises,” choose to actively “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,” and march toward possession of those promises (2 Pet. 1:4; Heb. 12:1).
We must surrender ourselves to the direction of the Spirit so that the blind may receive sight, for “if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost” (2 Cor 4:3).
When God calls home the backslider and the broken, we must be the church that looses them from their bonds and embraces revival!
If man is part of the miracle, I cry out, “Lord, use me!”
Be the first to comment