TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone? Mark 2:7
Listen: Mark 2
TODAY’S MESSAGE
Jesus disrupts the first-century world when he teaches with authority and heals. Jesus heals the blind, the deaf and the dead. As word of these healings spreads, four friends haul their paralyzed friend to Jesus. To get him to Jesus, they hack a hole in the roof to lower him down into a packed house. Jesus looks at them and tells the man his sins are forgiven.
This statement is shocking. Jesus skips all the steps required to get sins forgiven. He skips having to find a sacrifice, journeying to Jerusalem, talking to the priest, confessing to the priest, having the priest offer the sacrifice and having the priest pronounce that God had forgiven the sin. It’s an “end run” around the temple and everything it stood for.
Jesus offers us forgiveness today. John Dickson writes, “Jesus handed out forgiveness whenever anyone humbly approached him. He acted like a mobile temple.” We should humbly approach Jesus today. We do this by believing Jesus was God and died on the cross for our sins, and then receiving his forgiveness. We believe, and we receive. Romans 10:13 says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
IN YOUR CHAIR TIME TODAY
Believe and receive. Tell God you believe Jesus is who he said he was and that you believe he died on the cross. That his death on the cross paid the price for the things you have done that separated you from God. That you receive his forgiveness. If you would like to have a conversation about believing and receiving, please email us at btw@adabible.org.
Download a printable PDF of the BTW week here.
