Daily Devotion - Wednesday - March 17

One day, while Jesus was teaching in someone's house, many people were sitting there. Some of them were Pharisees. Other people were teachers of God's Law. They had come from many villages in Galilee, and from Judea and Jerusalem. The power of the Lord was there with Jesus to make sick people well. Then some men arrived. They were carrying a man on a mat. The man could not walk or move his legs. They tried to get into the house, because they wanted to bring the man to Jesus. But the house was full of people, and they could not get in. So, they carried the man on to the flat roof of the house. Then they made a hole in the roof. After that, they put the mat down through the hole. The man was still lying on it. He came down in the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. Jesus saw them. He knew that they believed in him. So he said to the sick man, ‘My friend, I forgive you for the wrong things that you have done.’
Luke 5:17-20
 
The man on the mat’s friends were willing to remove barriers. 
The friends saw that it was standing room only and they could have said this is too much work…. It's hard. There's no way, or we can try next time.
 
The man likely felt he's already had a good day. How many times have we come to a situation and it has a barrier and we just say “oh well”. He probably figured, he had gone out and saw his friends, took a trip. He was likely grateful for that alone and may have said "nevermind-- thanks anyway", but his friends would not hear it. They insisted on getting him in front of Jesus. They worked for it. Sometimes being there for our church family or our friends who need our hope is going to cost us something. Pastor Vicky talks a lot about how God loves it when we treat his kids well. That is what this means. Going the distance!- Meghan