Can You Have Too Much Faith?
Luke 5:20 Jesus saw how much faith they had and said to the sick man, "Friend, your sins are forgiven."
Question: is it possible to have too much faith in Jesus? I mean, if you trusted Him for something outrageous, would He look at you and think you’re stupid?
Picture this. This guy is paralysed. He can’t walk. The Jesus mega-star tour rolls into town. The crowds are following him everywhere, so this paralysed man’s friends couldn’t get him through the crowd to Jesus. What to do? So they decided that radical action was needed. They climbed up on the roof of the building where Jesus was preaching, ripped a hole in it and lowered him down on a stretcher.
Now, just think about that for a minute: the outrageous idea; the sheer logistics of the operation; the audacity of ripping a hole in the roof, and lowering him down on a stretcher, dropping him at Jesus’ feet, mid-sermon! What would the crowds have thought, let alone the people who owned the roof that now had a hole in it?
And what would Jesus think of this audacious queue-jumping stunt? Well, what did He think, how did He react?
(a) Shout at them and say, “What do you think you’re doing interrupting my sermon”? (b) Laugh at their stupidity? Or (c) …
Luke 5:20 Jesus saw how much faith they had and said to the sick man, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
I love this story. The human response would have been (a) or (b). The Jesus response? He was astonished at their faith. Do you know what I’ve noticed, reading the four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Jesus never, ever criticised anyone for putting too much faith in Him.
Think about that, next time you feel to rip a hole in someone’s roof; next time you feel led to take an outrageous step of faith that other people would criticise you for.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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