Advent Conspiracy Devotional: Thursday, December 16th

Scripture: Luke 5:19
When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.

Reflection: The above passage is the fairly famous story of the friends of a crippled man that find a creative way to get their friend into Jesus presence, eventually climbing up on to the roof of the house Jesus was in and cutting a hole in the roof to lower their friend down into Jesus’ presence. 

            These friends demonstrated true friendship to their crippled friend.  They must have been present enough with him – and often enough – to not just know him and know his medical situation, but to actually care about it.  They knew him well enough to care enough to do something about. 

            And his friends did go to great lengths to get him to one that could make a permanent healing difference for him – Jesus Christ.  This choice makes it clear that they were not just present with their friend but that they were present with Jesus as well.  They had somehow, somewhere experienced Jesus Christ and new that a few minutes in his presence could provide the gift of healing.

Question: Do you have any friends that need to experience being in the presence of God?  What have you done to share Jesus with them?