Standing before the mirror I looked at myself, seeing the old scars, marks of old wounds…”
–Louis L’Amour (Mojave Crossing)
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.”
–Colossians 2:6 (NKJV)
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There are so many lessons in the Word of God. Many things we cannot understand, many things we do not want to understand. There are things hidden to us and will not be revealed until eternity. But there are things that we ignore, things taken to heart, and things that open up to us throughout our lives.
Take time to read Mark 2:1-12. I have read this several times, have heard dozens upon dozens of sermons from this passage. There are many aspects to this story, but it wasn’t until recently that something new was brought to me. After you have read the complete passage focus on the following:
“I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
–Mark 2:11 (NKJV)
I had never paid attention to the fact that the man who had been paralyzed was told to pick up his bed. Think of that! Most of the sermons deal with the reaction of the Pharisees or the faith of the man’s friends. But the newly healed man was told to pick up his bed. We are not precisely told how old the man was, or how long he had been laying on his bed–paralyzed.
That bed must have been full of lice and bedbugs. Dirty, soiled, smelly, yet he was told to pick it up and walk away with it. He most likely wanted to burn it, much less look at it. D.I. Telbat says that, “God left scars…to remind us how God brings us through the fires of life.”
Are you “carrying a bed”? It is no longer a “sick bed” but a testimony bed. People can see the change in you whether it is salvation and the old man becoming new, or a specific healing, or a specific miracle. It was only after the Pharisees challenged him was the man told by Jesus to pick up his bed. It was now a testimony to the Pharisees.
Life can be a struggle, you may have a bed of affliction, you may have a virus, you may have a house torn by ravages of cold or storm. Listen to the Lord, look at your bed and realize that it may become a testimony. Notice the next verse,
“Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We never saw anything like this!'”
–Mark 2:12 (NKJV)
Be ready to obey. When the Lord speaks to you, take up your bed and walk. Lift it high, show it to those around, speak words that glorify the Lord.
(I need to thank Gary Wilkerson for the inspiration for these thoughts. The sermon I gathered some of these thoughts came from “A Way When There Is No Way,” April 20, 2020)