Get out of that Bed
There are 2 kinds of people in this world… those who make their beds every morning, and those who don’t.
Ok, there are more categories out there that have way more significance, but honestly between those 2 categories there really is no middle ground.
I’m a bed maker. Always have been. I can’t think straight if the bed is messy, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what that has to do with anything. But it’s true.
Thank goodness I married another bed maker!
As I have been making my way through Acts the last few weeks, I have been drawn to many stories of the apostles. There is a lot of mind blowing wisdom in those passages that I may flesh out another day, but there was a theme that kept tugging at my heart.
In Acts after the apostles received the Holy Spirit, they went throughout the region preaching the Gospel and doing miracles. A lot of the miracles were healings. Often the person who was being healed was not referred to by their name, but by their ailment. The lame man, the blind man, the paralyzed man. That is probably how they saw themselves as well. These people had nothing but their weakness. Their identity was so wrapped up in what was broken in them that they couldn’t see a way out. Many are not described as asking for healing, only money or some other provision. They seemed to give up hope of deliverance. Their weakness was so much a part of them that it consumed everything about them. It was like another appendage, just part of their body. Part of their soul.
Then it was taken away. Praise Jesus, they were healed!
Can you imagine what that would be like? You were so used to your brokenness that it was a part of you. It was an identifier. It was basically your name. And then it was gone. You were made new and whole. A whole new world has been open to you by the grace of God.
Can you imagine if the once lame man who had been healed walked up to a stranger and introduced himself as “the lame man”? People would think he was crazy! Here is this perfectly healthy individual walking around calling himself lame.
It’s like if I broke my leg, wore a cast for 6 weeks, got it removed, and went around telling people my leg is broken. They can clearly see it isn’t at all broken. It is healed.
As crazy as I would sound in that scenario, I believe we all still do this more often than we think. We were all walking wounded and lame before Jesus met us in the midst of it all. We were begging for some change and He turned our life around. We were broken and He healed us. We are new and whole. We deal with sin and the aches of this world from time to time (or all the time). But we are not broken anymore. We are healed. Just as we couldn’t walk around claiming a broken leg forever, we now don’t need to walk around labeling ourselves by our sin.
We have been healed by Jesus. If we really believed that how would our lives changed. I’m not saying we are perfect. I’m not saying some of your pre Jesus demons don’t come back to tease you (or knock you over completely). But they can only visit you. They don’t own you anymore. You are healed.
You are not a dead man walking. You are not who you used to be.
You are not a liar, cheater, or a fake. You are not damaged goods. You are healed and restored.
Why? Not because you fixed yourself. Not because you did the work, and put in the time. Not because you checked all the religious boxes.
Why then? Because Jesus took all your junk to the cross and nailed it there. Because His blood covered it entirely. Because He suffered in agony until it was erased completely. So who are we to pick it back up again?
Acts 9 tells the story of Aeneas, a man paralyzed and bed ridden. Peter prayed over him and he was healed. Do you know what the first thing Peter said to this man was? He said “Jesus Christ heals you; Rise and make your bed.”
Make your bed. That bed that you lived in for 8 years… Pull up the covers and straighten the sheets. You are not going to lay back down there.
Brothers and sisters, let’s make our beds. Let us put to rest the things that Christ saved us from.
He saved us from them on the cross, and continues to save us from them minute by minute until He returns.
We are no longer our sins and failures. We no longer need to run back to the things we once were. They will taunt us and tease us, but they no longer have any power over us.
To dwell on who we were keeps our eyes lingering on the darkness. But Christ asks us to set our eyes on things above. Let us give no weight to the things that once entangles us, except to declare that Christ has saved us from them. And to testify to others in the midst of them that God saves.
We were not saved to lie back down in that bed. We were saved to stand up. To walk with Christ. We are freed from past entanglements and distractions to be filled with His Word and His presence.
We were saved not to say I am broken. But to say once I was lost, but now…. By the Grace of God… I am healed.
Jesus Christ has healed you; Rise and make your bed.
