But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins," -He said to the paralytic- "I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home." (Luke 5:24 NASB)
The proof is in the pudding, you might say. Jesus recognized that words were not enough if He wanted the scribes and Pharisees to believe in Him and His divine authority. "Get up, get your stretcher, and go home," He told the man. The Greek word for go, poreuō, means to pursue the journey on which one has entered. Jesus was telling this man to return to the life he had before Jesus, but be different there. He would be a kind of living Bible to those who knew him, demonstrating with his life what his words spoke about Jesus and His miraculous healing power.
The Greek word translated as "home" is oikos and does mean home or residence, but it is also used to mean temple. Perhaps this particular word was used because the healed paralytic was to demonstrate the healing power of Christ both at home and at church.
The people who knew this man before his encounter with Jesus could not fail to recognize that he was a changed man. I wonder, can people who knew us before Jesus see as recognizable a change in us?
Today, pray that we and our loved ones will demonstrate by our changed lives that the Risen Lord has wrought a mighty work in us. Pray, too, that we (and those believers in our loved ones' lives) would be so clearly transformed by Christ that those around us (especially our loved ones) cannot help but see Christ in us. Pray that they will become shining beacons of Christ's light as well.
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