Carried to Christ

By Beverly Guy, CMCUS Strategic Messaging Team Lead

None of us can carry ourselves to God. But God, in His grace, carries us to Himself. And once He’s brought us into His family, He uses us to carry others so they can experience His goodness—sometimes literally.

Amir* rolled up to the doors of the church. He’d seen Jesus in a dream and believed, and now he sought a gathering of Christians where he could learn more.

Christar workers Micah and Lydia welcomed him excitedly and invited him to join the worship service. But there was just one little problem: An accident had left Amir paralyzed from the waist down and reliant on a wheelchair … and the Arabic fellowship met on the third floor.

The building didn’t have an elevator, but it did have faithful believers who wanted Amir to know Christ just as they did. So, Micah, along with four other men in the church, carried Amir in his chair up the narrow stairway to the room where the congregation met.

Amir was hesitant to come back. He didn’t want to be a burden, he told the men who lowered him back down the stairs. But, as Micah recalls, “By God’s grace we explained that it’s a blessing for us to carry him.”

By God’s grace, Amir believed them, returned and has begun to be discipled. Micah, Lydia and others in the church are praying that this budding faith will continue to grow so he can lead others to Jesus just as he was carried to Christ.

Amir’s experience brings to mind another man who was quite literally carried—and lowered—to Christ. Luke’s account begins this way:

“One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 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.

“When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.’” Luke 5:17-20 (NIV)

For those of us who know the story, it might be especially easy to miss a vital detail. Jesus saw their faith—not the paralyzed man’s faith but the confident hope of his friends that this teacher from Nazareth could do what they could not.

Their persistent and creative effort to bring their friend to the One they trusted prompts Jesus to declare this man forgiven and leads to his physical healing as well. If God was willing to grant healing based on their faith, what might He do in the lives of the people we love and entrust to Him?

Do we really believe that the Lord can change the lives of the people who populate our prayers? How might we carry someone else so that God can work in the hearts of those we’re trusting Him to heal? And how might what would otherwise be a burden become a blessing that’s part of His plan of redemption?

Participate Through Prayer

• Praise God for drawing Amir to Himself and for providing people who could carry him into fellowship with others.
• Ask the Lord to continue to work through local believers in least-reached communities to bring more people into His family.
• Praise God that when He asks us to play a role in introducing someone else to His goodness, what would otherwise be a burden is a blessing. Ask Him if there’s a way He’d like you to carry someone in your life to Him.