Breakfast with the Word Friday Week 1 in Ordinary Time of the Year
Mark 2:2-12
How do you feel whenever you want to go to God in prayer? What is always in our minds whenever we join others in a prayer session? Those things that go through our minds are very important.
What goes into the mind before we approach God is very important.
Do we go to God with a heart full of doubt? Do we only go to Him because there are people who advised us to try God?
Going in the presence of God demands full conviction and expectation. It demands full hope that He can do what we ask of Him.
To go in the presence of God needs full conviction without a doubt that God is full of love.
What goes into the mind when we want to approach God should be a full conviction. It is not a doubt.
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To come After Jesus:Monday First Week Ordinary Time of the Year C
The Baptism of Jesus and What It Means for Us. Sunday Breakfast
What We say About Others: Breakfast With the Word
The Group of People that Encounter Jesus Today.
In the gospel of today, we have the paralytic who was brought down from a rooftop, the four men who helped him to encounter Jesus. And finally, the scribes who doubt Jesus’ power and authority to forgive sins.
The first group encountered healing, while the second group had nothing.
The first group came with faith and conviction while the second group was full of doubt.
At last, only those who acted out of faith experienced His healing power.
It is good to note that the first group came with faith, the second group came with doubt and at last, those who came with faith were favoured.
In essence, what goes into our minds at prayers, before prayers and after prayers are extremely important if we truly want to experience the power of God.
What goes into the mind should be faith and only faith. We should give no room for doubt.
The Four Men and the Paralytic.
In the gospel, when the four men came to where Jesus is today, they were prevented by the crowd to meet Jesus. They have to open the roof of the house to find a way.
The question then is “why must they make such kind of effort?
How are they sure that if they lower the paralytic, Jesus will heal Him? Will that not be a wasted effort? Must Jesus heal all?
But in these four men, there is no room for doubt. What they want is simply to lower the paralytic in His presence and leave him there.
This shows that they have heard about Jesus and believe that what they heard is true. What goes into their minds is only to tap healing from Jesus.
So, they go for Him with an eye focused on the good things the Lord can do and not whether He would heal or not.
Therefore, when we come to the Lord, do we focus our attention on our problems and the prayers He has not answered the way we want? Or Do we focus on the goodness of the Lord?
If there are good and impossible things God has done in your life, it means He can do more.
In the case of the Paralytic, nothing was heard from him. But what do you think must be going through his mind?
For Him to allow the four men to lower him from the roof means the four men must also have told him about Jesus, and because of that, He accepted whatever they could do to bring Him in the presence of the Lord.
What goes into the mind and our hearts are very important during prayers.
Faith comes through the mind. It comes with this deep and sincere conviction about what the Lord can do.
What goes into the mind or what goes in our hearts during prayers tells a lot about the magnitude of our faith.
When you go in God’s presence, do you see Him as a loving God or not? When we go in the Lord’s presence, do we like the woman that suffers a haemorrhage, convince ourselves that if only we could touch His cloak, we shall encounter healing? If only we can visit Him, we will encounter healing and divine graces.
Let us always be wary of what goes into the minds. What goes into the mind is very important.
The Faith of Others can help.
When Jesus saw the faith of the four men, He did not only heal the paralytic but forgives him of all his sins.
Sometimes, we need the faith of others. When they brought the man to Jesus, Jesus marvels at the faith of the men who brought the paralytic and not even the paralytic.
So, When you have an intention, you can as well ask others to help you at prayers. Today, the faith of others saved a paralytic. The faith of others can save you as well.
God searches the Heart.
When the scribes began to murmur among themselves about Jesus’ ability to forgive sins, they do not know that Jesus knows whatever they are saying among themselves.
Therefore, God knows our hearts. He knows the heart that comes to Him with love and faith and the one that came just for a trial.
God knows the mind that is full of conviction in what He can do and the one that is full of doubt.
He knows it, when we just pray for the sake of praying and when we mean what we pray.
The question today then is “when we go in His presence, do we go with a heart full of doubts, worry, fear and complaints or a heart full of love and faith for Jesus.
Even when it looks as if God is keeping silent, it is better to keep the faith strong than lose it entirely. Always remember that what goes into the mind is very important before you meet God.
Be fully convinced that God is capable of listening to you with Love. Be fully assured that He will surely welcome you as a Father.
Then, do not doubt His power to do what you want to ask Him do for you, you will be marvelled at what the Lord can do for You.
May God bless you dearest, and give us the grace to stand firm despite the seeming challenges. May we never lose hope in Him. Amen