The Audacity of Faith

The story of Luke 5: 18-26 is an inspiration to those who believe that God is powerful and can do the impossible. The audacity of faith makes people do things that the world views as stupid. In this testimony, the world would roll their eyes at what these men did to get their friend into the presence of Jesus.

The world says, oh come on, the man is paralyzed! There is no way he is going to walk, so accept that truth and move on. But his friend's faith says no, we will not accept that until we enter the presence of Jesus and he tells us otherwise. So they pick up their friend's bed and carry him to the place where Jesus is. On arriving they find such a large crowd they cannot get inside the door. Now they are at a decision point, they want their friend to walk and they did not carry him this far to wait, so they find another way into the presence of Jesus. The trouble they went through to get their friend into the presence of Jesus. They had to climb to the roof and lift him there and then they still had to remove part of the ceiling. This wasn't just a five minute detour either, they had to negotiate many road blocks just to get him into Christ's presence, and then there were no guarantee's that Jesus would heal him. However, their friend was worth the effort and the result touched Jesus deeply.

Jesus told them that this kind of faith leads to forgiveness of sins, not just physical healing. This kind of faith brings a person into God's presence, and walking pales in comparison to seeing God. This kind of faith is a testimony of how deeply you believe and trust in the power of God. This kind of faith results in God assuring us that our sin is forgiven.

The audacity of faith - pure foolishness to the world, pure trust and belief to the Father of creation. Father, I want to enter your presence, help me to have such audacious faith!