{"id":24130,"date":"2015-02-01T00:20:04","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T05:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=24130"},"modified":"2015-02-01T00:02:45","modified_gmt":"2015-02-01T05:02:45","slug":"paralyzed-forgiven-healed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2015\/02\/01\/paralyzed-forgiven-healed\/","title":{"rendered":"From Paralyzed to Forgiven and Healed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SeekingHimLogo\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>
\nSince they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd,
\nthey made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it
\nand then lowered the mat the man was lying on.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>
\nWhen Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, <\/span><\/strong>
\n\u201cSon, your sins are forgiven.\u201d<\/span><\/strong>
\n Mark 2:3-5<\/span> <\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Friends.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span>\u00a0What would we do without our friends? \u00a0The man in our Scripture today would not have been able to receive his healing had his friends not put their faith into action…and been willing to get help for their friend. \u00a0We are not told whether the man had been paralyzed for a long or a short time; we just know that he was paralyzed.<\/p>\n

Do you have such love for a friend—in which you would go to that much trouble for them? \u00a0If not, then we really need to look at our friend list and see who God would direct us to help.<\/p>\n

As we walk through life we will have many friends…those who we went to school with, those we make through work, and those we make through just simply living. \u00a0Some of us have friends we have made through our life experiences. \u00a0And often, our best friend is our spouse or our siblings.<\/p>\n

And then we have those people in our lives who do not make friends easily and keep everyone at arm’s length—who do not let anyone close due to life’s struggles. \u00a0That is a painful way to go through life and is not what God intended for His children. \u00a0He wants us to love others and bring them into a closer relationship with Him. \u00a0This cannot be done if we continue to put people off. We have to learn to trust and use the discernment God gave us to know who to let get close.<\/p>\n

Our friends are those who are by our side no matter what the season. \u00a0They may not be able to be there physically, but still are there as they pray and submit requests to God on our behalf when we are going through suffering or a time of testing. \u00a0We are also to be there for them, lifting them up and being honest with them when needed.<\/p>\n

But remember, our earthly friends are human. \u00a0They are subject to the pulls and tears of this world. \u00a0Our true Friend is our heavenly Father. \u00a0He will never leave us, never forsake us…no matter what we have done, said, or thought. \u00a0When we confess with our mouth, repent, and turn away from our sins, God is sure to show us mercy through His Son Jesus.<\/p>\n

* \u00a0~ \u00a0\u2665 \u00a0~ \u00a0\u271e \u00a0~ \u00a0\u2665 \u00a0~ \u00a0* <\/span><\/p>\n

Father, thank You for Your mercy. \u00a0Thank You for Your grace. \u00a0Father, teach us to be better friends, better wives, and better daughters. \u00a0Teach us to be intercessory prayer warriors on behalf of our family and friends. \u00a0 Thank You for giving us great examples who we\u00a0model our prayers after. Thank You! \u00a0In Jesus’ name, Amen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 When Jesus saw their faith, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":13840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3020],"tags":[8333,3367,365,8335,1287,425,8289,8334,3174,1071],"class_list":["post-24130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-being-a-friend","tag-daily-devotions-2","tag-faith","tag-faith-in-action","tag-gch","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-jesus-words-on-faith","tag-mark-23-5","tag-seeking-him-devotional","tag-tina-marin","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-6hc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24130"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24197,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24130\/revisions\/24197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}