“Let’s Tear The Roof Off The Place”

In Job and Mark and Luke, we find two different kinds of friends. In Job, we find very spiritual sounding friends who are no help at all to Job in his time of sickness. (Notice that this was an illness that God Himself had permitted Satan to bring upon Job NOT because Job had sinned, but because he was a very Godly man and Satan was trying to destroy his faith in the Lord.)

Apparently, God wanted to prove Himself to Job, prove Job to Himself and the Devil… AND make Job’s faith an inspiration to all future generations, through the Biblical record of God’s working in and through Job’s trials.

These “friends” of Job, on the other hand, were trying to find every possible explanation as to why these things were happening to Job. “Man’s logic,” told these “friends” that Job had sinned and therefore he had brought this upon himself. Their false logic and accusations just made it more difficult for Job to let God fulfill His will in and through Job’s life.

[bctt tweet=”I want to be the kind of friend that “tears the roof off the place”. How about you? [bctt tweet=”Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15-13 NIV)” username=”scotthumston”]

On the other hand, In Mark 2:3-12 and again in Luke 5:17-26, we find DIFFERENT KINDS OF FRIENDS! These were the friends of one who was paralyzed and could not walk. These four friends brought the crippled man to Jesus for healing. However, when they got to where Jesus was, there were so many people crowded around Him that they could not get their friend to Jesus. So they lifted their friend up onto the roof, broke open the tiles of the roof and lowered their friend down before Jesus.

THE KEY

Now the next sentence is THE KEY to this passage. “When Jesus saw THEIR faith …” He forgave his sins and healed him.

IT WAS NOT THE FAITH OF THE SICK MAN BUT THE FAITH OF THE FOUR—WHO BROUGHT HIM TO JESUS THAT CHRIST RECOGNIZED AND HONORED.

[bctt tweet=”IT WAS NOT THE FAITH OF THE SICK MAN BUT THE FAITH OF THE FOUR—WHO BROUGHT HIM TO JESUS THAT CHRIST RECOGNIZED AND HONORED.” username=”scotthumston”]

Don’t you deeply appreciate THAT kind of friend?

Sharing His Wonder!