Lessons from Matthew 9: Forgive Sin
Remember the paralyzed man from our previous lesson?
Are you like that paralyzed man? Do you have such a guilty conscience or shame from the things you have done that you cannot move forward? Are you unable to study, enjoy other people, be a loving mother, daughter, wife, sister, or friend because you are loaded down with thoughts or actions you know are wrong?
There is hope for you because Jesus has the power to forgive sin. The same power of Jesus that healed the paralytic is available to you.
All you have to do is come to Jesus and ask for His forgiveness and healing. Or maybe you have a friend who cannot come to Jesus on their own. Maybe they are burdened with sin and guilt and its crippling affects.
Forgive Sin
Will you, like the paralytic’s friends, bring your friend and their needs before the loving Lord who desires to help?
This is intercessory prayer.
As we can expect, there are always those who will oppose Jesus’s ability to forgive our sins and cleanse our hearts and minds and lives.
And it was the same in Jesus’s time. It appears that some of the teachers of the law were present and said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!”
To blaspheme means to use God’s name either irreverently (swear by His name) or to use His name slanderously. This is what the Jewish religious leaders accused Jesus of. They knew, as we do, that only God has the power and authority to forgive sins. So claiming to be able to forgive sins is a claim to be God. And therefore they accused Jesus of the vilest form of blasphemy and felt He should be stoned.
Though they were right in their facts, that only God can forgive sins, they refused to believe that Jesus was the promised Son of God. If Jesus can forgive sin, as He was about to show He could, then Jesus is God. And this is precisely how Jesus handled their unspoken question.
Knowing their thoughts, which He called evil, Jesus asked them:
“Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”
And the man did exactly as Jesus commanded him.
When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe. They were surprised by joy and they praised God.
Jesus not only spoke words of forgiveness in cleansing the man of his sins, He also demonstrated His power over sin and sickness by healing this man completely.
Jesus was first concerned with the man’s spiritual well-being and then He healed his infirmity. It is important for us to know that Jesus does not always heal people of their diseases but it is His desire to heal them spiritually. If God does not heal us, or someone we love, we need to remember that physical healing is not Christ’s only concern.
Spiritual health comes only from Jesus’s healing touch. We will all be healed in Christ’s coming kingdom but first we have to come to know Jesus.
Revelation 3:20 tells us Jesus says to anyone outside of His kingdom: Here I am! I stand at the door of your heart and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door of your heart, I will come in and I will be with you and you with me.
Jesus wants to have fellowship with us, and He wants us to open up to Him. He is patient and persistent in trying to get through to us—not breaking and entering, but knocking. He allows us to decide whether or not to open our lives up to Him.
The question is do you, like these teachers of the law, intentionally keep His life-changing presence on the other side of the door?
Terri Hamman
Faith & Fitness Coach