The accounting of the man who was paralyzed going before Jesus by being lowered through the roof his companions vandalized is one of the best-known healings in the entire Bible. It is told in three different Gospels, including Luke 5:17-26.
There is so much packed into those 10 verses! It is easy to focus on the gifts that are provided – forgiveness of sin and healing of paralysis.
I deeply appreciate how Charles Spurgeon guides our attention away from these extraordinary acts of forgiving sins and healing paralysis to the actor who made both of those things possible:
After our blessed Lord had taken away the root of the evil, you observe he then took away the paralysis itself. It was gone in a single moment. Every limb in the man’s body was restored to a healthy state; he could stand, could walk, could lift his bed, both nerve and muscle were restored to vigor.
One moment will suffice, if Jesus speaks, to make the despairing happy, and the unbelieving full of confidence. What we cannot do with our reasonings, persuadings, and entreaties, nor even with the letter of God’s promise, Christ can do in a single instant by his Holy Spirit, and it has been our joy to see it done.
This is the standing miracle of the church, performed by Christ to-day even as aforetime. Paralysed souls who could neither do nor will, have been able to do valiantly, and to will with solemn resolution. The Lord has poured power into the faint, and to them that had no might he hath increased strength.
He can do it still.
Charles H. Spurgeon, Carried by Four: A Sermon, delivered on March 19, 1871.
I’m grateful for this reminder to hope in Jesus above all things, even very good gifts like healing.
The Works of God 
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