The Works of God

I was blown away, again, by God’s purposes in healing the paralytic of his disability:

“But 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, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” (Mark 2:10-11)

Do you feel the earth move at that statement?  Healing this man of his disability was certainly a good and kind thing, but it was not the main thing.  Jesus’ authority to forgive sins is the main thing.  And he healed him “that you may know” that Jesus has this authority.  This knowledge is a kindness extended to everyone, not just the one man who was healed.

So, it is good to fight the temptation to make physical healing the main thing in our relationship with Jesus.

And we see another example of this authority in John 5:1-18, the healing at the pool of Bethesda.  Pastor John helpfully provided this statement in a sermon on that passage:

Jesus seeks out the man in the temple and tells him the real issue in his healing. “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.’” What’s the issue? The issue is holiness mainly, not health. “I have healed you to make you holy.”

I pray earnestly for my wife, that God would continue to hold her cancer at bay.  Praying for healing is a very good  and appropriate thing.  But it is a good thing only because it is subordinate to the main thing: Jesus Christ, my savior and my God.