Sue, her friend Elise, and Sue’s teen daughter Jessica arrived at the area Drop Zone. Jessica loved watching her mom jump from the planes. It was a beautiful autumn morning. They dressed for their jump and examined their packing cables. Jessica anxiously awaited when she’d be old enough to jump with her mom.
When Sue and Elise exited the jump plane all was going great. Jessica watched as her mom descended under the parachute canopy.
Then, something went wrong. A sudden wind took Sue off her planned course. To correct this unexpected change and avoid crashing into a barn, Sue pulled down hard on her left toggle, which would steer her away.
This action caused Sue’s parachute to collapse, sending her pounding into the ground. She could only lie there on her face. Everything hurt and she was screaming with excruciating pain. The EMTs had to roll her onto her back to treat her. That sent Sue into a near faint. Her condition was first diagnosed as only a broken leg. However, further X-rays and evaluations found that her pelvis was broken in two places, and her sacrum was also broken.
The doctors told Sue that she’d never walk again. Sue was a long-distance competitive runner, as well as having a love for skydiving. By the following year, Sue ran in two marathons and was floating to earth again under a parachute. She wasn’t paralyzed!
Jesus once healed a paralytic. In Mark 2:1-12 there’s a man whose friends went to great lengths to introduce him to Jesus. You can read all about it in your own Bible. The man was confined to his bed. Everyone in town knew him as being a paralytic. In the end, the man was not only healed of his paralysis but the man was healed of his sins! Jesus proved Himself able to forgive sins.
What would your life be like if you were this paralytic? You’d be confined all day to that cramped, dirty, smelly pallet! But worse than that, you’d be confined by your sins.
If you are restricted by sin and still need Jesus’ power to forgive, then you are restricted like that paralytic man.Why not get up? Bring yourself to Jesus today!
“The Lord is not slow to keep His promise (as some people think of “slow”). No, He is patient with you. He wants everyone to find room for a change in their hearts. He doesn’t want anyone to be lost.” (2 Peter 3:9) God wants you to “Change your hearts and…be immersed by the authority of Jesus the Messiah so that your sins may be forgiven.” (Acts 2:38)