Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. (Mark 2:3-4).
Jesus marveled at those four friends. They were the kind of people Jesus chose to work with him. The standouts of the Bible (such as Peter and Paul) were like them. Those guys wouldn’t stop in the face of barriers and difficulties. If they couldn’t go through or around, they went up and over.
The Lord’s work is not easy. In fact, it’s getting harder in this society.
So do we give up? I don’t want to stand before Jesus one day with feeble excuses:
“Lord, I tried to do this, but people wouldn’t cooperate with me. It was hard. It was expensive. And besides, I had my own life to live.”
Does our community need Jesus more than ever? Is there more or less confusion? Is there more or less fear? Is there more or less turmoil?
There’s no doubt in my mind that the need for a Savior is greater than ever.
In the thirty years I’ve been a minister, I’ve listened to church moan and whine about how hard it is to have church like we used to. I’ve heard worries about how we could “lose our church.”
Congregations come and go, but the church will not fail because Jesus will not fail. The question is will I be a part of his success or lie down my own failure?
I say that we need to stop wringing our hands and put them to work for Jesus.
Is the way blocked? Then let’s go up and over.
