Your Faith Can Move Mountains in the Lives of Others
- Big J Journaling
- Jan 27, 2021
- 2 min read
Submitted By Jade Cessna
Hi friends, my name is Jade and I am a junior in college. I am also the face behind @surrounding.faith on Instagram! I was saved by grace in 2014 and my love for Christ has been growing since. But here’s the thing- I am still a sinner and I still fall away from God sometimes. I am not perfect...but I am thankful for a perfect God.
Friends! This passage is SO powerful so I just had to write about it!
First, let’s set the scene...starting in Luke 5:17, we read about these friends who are so faithful to God, they are dedicated to getting their sick friend to Jesus because they knew Jesus would heal him. However, Jesus was in a room surrounded by people so it was hard to get their paralyzed friend (whom they were carrying on a stretcher) to Him. They end up carrying their friend to the roof of the building and “lowering him on the stretcher through the roof tiles into the middle of the crowd before Jesus” (V19).
This is where we get to the good stuff...so let us read verse 20 again- “Seeing their faith he [Jesus] said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven’”. What do you notice about this verse? What is so special about it? Well, when we take a close look at it, we realize and understand that the paralyzed man was completely healed and forgiven of his sins because of the faith of his friends! How incredible was that? Jesus SAW the faith of this man’s friends and healed him because of it.
So why does this matter to us? Friends, this is GREAT encouragement to us as we pray for our friends, family, and loved ones. We now know and can rest assured that our prayers and faith on behalf of someone else DOES MATTER. We know from Psalm 66:19-20 that God hears our prayers. He is listening and He is working.
For me personally, I have many people in my life who are not believers. I was not raised in a Christian household so my mother, father, and brother are not Christians. I have prayed for them for years, and many others in my life, but sometimes it is hard to pray for those people in our lives when it doesn’t look like any progress is being made. We begin to lose hope and our prayers become few and far between for the people in our lives who need it the most.
That is why I wanted to share with you guys this verse. It gave me a renewed sense of hope knowing that the faith of this man’s friends healed his physical body and healed his spirit. It gave me hope that I am not talking to a God who does not respond. It gave me hope that my prayers for other people, that my faith in God for other people can move mountains in their lives. And I hope that if you’re reading this, you now know that too. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on Instagram! I really hope this touched the life of just one person and renewed their hope in praying for others in their life! <3 Jade
God is so good, I was really in need of that message. Sometimes we may think that our prayers for some people will not be answered by God, but even if we don't see what He is planning, one thing we can be sure, with faith "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. " - James 5:16 (Sorry if there is a mistake in writing, I used the google translator haha.)