Verse Of the Week for May 12 - May 18

“And when He saw their faith, he said unto him, 'Man thy sins are forgiven thee.'"
"And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.”

- Luke 5:20, 25

We saw last week how that this man, who was paralyzed was brought by four of his friends to a house where Jesus was teaching and preaching. The wanted to get him to Jesus, believing that He would heal their friend. They couldn’t come into the house because of the crowd of people. They were so determined to get him to Jesus, they went up onto the roof of the house, tore a hole in the roof, and let him down to Jesus. The scripture said, “When he saw their faith…” The faith of all five of these men. Jesus says, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.” Think about this. Jesus never performed a miracle just for the sake of performing a miracle. He was concerned about the spiritual healing of an individual, the salvation of one’s soul! The religious leaders of that day said, Who can forgive sins, but God alone?” This is a true statement! Only God can forgive sins! The thing these religionists didn’t realize was that God himself was standing right in front of them. Jesus was, is, and always will be God. He would prove that to them by telling the man, “Arise, take up thy couch, and go into thine house.”

Immediately, the man took up his bed and went home glorifying God. The Bible says in verse 26, “And they were all amazed, and the glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things today.”  All of this was the result of Faith. Faith is believing, trusting God with our whole heart. Pray. Dear Lord, help me to have complete faith, trust, belief in you that we can see you do amazing things in the lives of people around us that truly need you! Next week we will see, The forgiveness of sin. Bless each of you that read these verses.