What kind of friends do you have?

In Mark 2, it says, “And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men. Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”

A few weeks ago, the Lee family read Mark chapter two as a part of our daily devotionals. There are a lot of people in this story:

·      You have Jesus.

·      You have the paralytic.

·      You have the large crowd.

·      You have the scribes and Pharisees (mentioned in Luke’s Gospel) who heard what Jesus said.

·      You also have four men who carried this man and lowered him to the roof.

We don’t know who these four men were. I like to think that these men were friends of this man who was paralyzed. Whether they were his friends or not, this story can teach us a lot about the kind of friends we should strive to have and the kind of friend we should be to others.

1.     These men helped the paralytic get close to Jesus. When we think about our friends, they should be helping us get closer to Jesus. Friends who hinder our walk with Christ are not the kind of friends we are to have.  We also need to think about ourselves as well. As a friend to others, how might we be helping them to draw even closer to Jesus?

2.     These men took extreme measures to help their friend. They sacrificed their time, energy, and any concerns of caring about what others may have thought about their tactics. They were on a mission and cared enough for this man to do as much as possible. These are the kind of friends we need in our inner circles. And by the way, we need to be this kind of friend as well. One can have 5,000 friends on Facebook, and still not have those who will go the extra mile for you. This man had four people who did.

3.     These men had faith in Jesus. As we grow in our faith, hopefully those closest to us are a part of THE WAY. There’s strength in surrounding ourselves with other disciples of Jesus.