{"id":7314,"date":"2021-10-17T14:09:06","date_gmt":"2021-10-17T04:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=7314"},"modified":"2021-10-22T10:36:55","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T00:36:55","slug":"choose-your-friends-wisely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/choose-your-friends-wisely\/","title":{"rendered":"Choose Your Friends Wisely"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Choose Your Friends Wisely<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from a sermon by Adel Magdy<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Mark 2:1-12<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most interesting stories in the Gospels is the story of the paralytic man that was lowered through the roof by his friends seeking his healing. Typically when Jesus heals someone, it’s through the personal faith of the one being healed. For the man born blind, Jesus said to him, \u201cdo you want to made well?\u201d <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this story we hear a very different sentence. We read of a man being lowered through a roof by his friends and then Jesus says something quite different to him than in the other miracles of healing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jesus saw their<\/strong> faith, He said to the paralytic, \u201cSon, your sins are forgiven you.\u201d<\/p>Mark 2:5<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It was because of the faith of the four friends that this paralytic\nman was able to walk again. Not because of his own personal faith. His healing\ncame from the faith of his friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is Biblical basis for the concept of receiving healing from the faith of those we surround ourselves with. When St Paul visits the town of Lystra, he begins preaching and is loved by the people. The Jews from other surrounding towns come and they turn the crowds against St Paul. They compelled them to stone him almost to death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city.<\/p>Acts 14:20<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

St Paul rose when the disciples gathered around him. Similar\nto the story we read about the paralytic man, for it wasn\u2019t his faith that made\nhim well, but the faith of his friends that brought him to Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can rely on the faith of others when we feel weak. At\ntimes when I have felt distant from God and in extreme need, I have confided in\nmy father of confession and as soon as I go home to pray, I pray not for my\nsake, but for the sake of the faith of my confession father who I know is praying\nfor me. Almost always, this is a prayer that is answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What these four men did for their friend was incredible.\nThey had every reason to give up; the crowd was huge, they couldn\u2019t reach the\nLord, they could have said it was too hard to lift the man above the roof, they\ncould have said this is not our house to remove the roof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, none of this stopped them from seeing the Lord. These\nare the kind of friends that I need in my life. The ones that will do whatever\nit takes and come to the Lord no matter what it takes. These are the people I\nknow will always look out for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, even in a non-spiritual sense. In my second year\nof university, I got really sick and I missed the majority of the semester. I\nwas constantly going back and forth from the doctors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I finally got back to my studies toward the end of the\nsemester, I had an assignment due the next day. I had missed so much that I\nbarely knew anything about the subject. I didn\u2019t know what to do. I spoke to a\ngood friend of mine and he said do what you can when you get home. This didn\u2019t\nwork very well for me so I was planning to explain my situation to the Dean the\nnext morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I walked into the office, I got a call from my friend who asked me where I was. I told him I was at the Dean\u2019s office to make an appointment. He told me to meet him outside. I walked outside and saw him there holding an assignment that he had spent the whole night writing. He told me that he made mine very different to his and to submit it as my own. When we got our results, the assignment he had done on my behalf received a higher mark than the one he did for himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine this on a spiritual level. Who did I consider to be my closest friends? Are they the ones that draw me away from the Lord? Or the ones willing to carry me to meet the Lord? These are the friends that I need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Choose Your Friends Wisely Adapted from a sermon by Adel Magdy Mark 2:1-12 One of the most interesting stories in the Gospels is the story of the paralytic man that was lowered through the roof by his friends seeking his healing. Typically when Jesus heals someone, it’s through the personal faith of the one being … Continue reading “Choose Your Friends Wisely”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7314"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7318,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7314\/revisions\/7318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}