WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: Sometimes we struggle to get to Jesus; others crowd around him and we feel too weak to muscle our way through. Picture yourself in the crowd trying to reach Jesus. Now see him turn and catch your eye, smiling as he calls your name and makes a path through the crowds. You are special to him. Results focused We like to see results, don’t we? In our efforts, for our studies, in the project we’re working on at work, in our kids as we pour our time and love into them. Our whole culture is geared towards measurable results. News reports give us statistical evidence that something will damage our health or delay the aging process. The Pharisees in these verses were scandalised because Jesus claimed to forgive sins, something only God has the right to do. In his response Jesus makes it clear that whether the results are invisible or visible the key to the miraculous is authority (v 10). The trickier transformation For Jesus healing the paralytic was the easy bit, it was simply an external physical problem. But his authority in the physical demonstrated his authority in a much more difficult purpose – the forgiveness of sin. The internal state of our hearts is the trickier transformation and yet Mark shows us Jesus’ skills not just as a ‘results man’ in the physical but also able to remove the self-inflicted wounds where sin twists and distorts us. Respond: Spend time with God asking him to take authority over you again today, healing and transforming your body and heart. http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-01-24