Daily Devotional

Imagine the silence in that room. Four friends have worked hard to lay a paralyzed man at Jesus’ feet, and Jesus says nothing about his legs. He speaks about his sins. It sounds like Jesus has misread the situation. In fact, He has read it more deeply than anyone else in the room.

Jesus is not saying this man is paralyzed because of some particular sin. When His disciples asked that question about a man born blind, Jesus said, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents” (John 9:3). Yet it is true that sin is the root of all sickness and suffering. When Adam fell, death walked in the door with him (Romans 5:12). Every hospital room, every wheelchair, and every funeral home testifies that this world is broken. Our primary problem is not sickness. It is sin.

That is hard to hear, because we tend to come to Jesus the way these friends did. Fix my marriage. Fix my money. Fix my body. Fix my kids. Jesus cares about each of those things, and He was about to heal this man’s legs too. But you could get everything on your list and still be lost. You could walk out with healthy legs and a dead soul. Real change begins when we stop asking only, “How do I get out of this?” and start asking, “What does God want to do in my heart through this?”