Bible Study from Matthew 9:2

This Bible Study is from Matthew 9:2 of the Bible. The first thing that you should notice is that it says that some people brought a paralytic to Jesus. The man was helpless; he could not bring himself. He was lying on a stretcher. The next thing that you will notice is that Jesus saw their faith. It is not stated as to whether the paralytic had faith or just his friends. We will get to the importance of this in a minute. The third thing that should be noticed is that Jesus tells the paralytic to take courage and that his sins are forgiven.

Who were these people that brought the paralytic to Jesus? Obviously, they were people that cared. The man could not take care of himself therefore he needed someone to intervene for him. These people did just that. There are going to be times in our lives when we cannot take care of ourselves. Whether it is physical or spiritual, we are going to need someone to intervene on our behalf. These men were intervening on this man's behalf. They were doing what he could not do at the moment. Prayer is like that. God calls us to pray for our friends. The friends of this man were beseeching Jesus to heal him.

Next, notice that God is aware of our faith. Faith does move the hand of God. What do you think would have happened if these men did not have faith? I doubt that Jesus would have responded so quickly. He wants us to have faith. The Bible says that if we do not have faith, it is impossible to please God. If we do not have faith then we need to be like the man that was truthful with Jesus in the Bible. The man told Jesus that he didn't have faith, but that he did desire to have faith. God will honor this as well. He will help our faith to grow if it is needed and if we desire it.

The third thing to notice is that Jesus tells the paralytic to take courage (at this point Jesus calls him His child) and that his sins are forgiven. Notice that Jesus does not heal this man right away. He first deals with the spiritual part of the man's life. There are going to be times in our lives that God wants to work in this area first. This won't always be the case. Sometimes he works with the physical first. I see here that Jesus was making a statement to this man and the people. The statement was that we are lost spiritually. We need our sins forgiven. Another thing that I notice about this scripture is that Jesus calls the man son. Jesus was connecting with him. He was letting the man know that he was important to Him. The last thing that I notice about this scripture is that Jesus tells him to take courage. Jesus was encouraging him. Maybe the man had lost all form of hope. Maybe there were other "healers" in the area and he never got well. Jesus goes straight for the emotions and tells him that it's going to be alright.

It is amazing what kind of God we have. He sees everything. He sees our spiritual needs, emotional needs, and our physical needs. He wants us to be well in every aspect of our lives. He wants us to be whole. He gets right down to our needs right away. He doesn't play around. He calls it like it is. He also calls us to accountability. When He tells the man that his sins are forgiven He is letting Him know that he is a sinner and that he needs to have his sins taken care of. Are we willing to let the Lord work in our lives like this so that He can bring healing to us?