"Rise and Make Your Bed"

I was reading the story of Aeneas' healing in Acts 9:32-35 and was struck by something...how similar physical healing is to what happens when someone is saved from sin and unbelief. Here's Aeneas...he has been paralyzed and lying on a mat for 8 years, and I can imagine that every day he spent lying on that mat he was more and more tempted to lose hope that he would ever walk again. Or maybe the hopelessness had gotten to the point that he thought he was content with lying in bed; maybe he had reached the point of not caring. Then his life changes...here comes Peter, the man of God, and the first thing he says to him is, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed." The order is crucial; before Aeneas can rise and begin his new life, Jesus Christ must heal him. But after he receives that healing, restoring touch from Jesus, Aeneas has a command to obey: he must rise. I can only imagine how many times Aeneas had attempted to get off that mat, and he must have looked at Peter like he had gone crazy. But something about the authority with which Peter said the name "Jesus Christ" must have convinced Aeneas that obeying this ridiculous command was actually possible. And he rose.

The next thing Peter tells Aeneas to do is to "make his bed." This is amazing...that bed represented, to Aeneas, his entire life for 8 long years. Peter commands him to take this bed, fold it up, and do away with it. He had a new life now, and he was to leave his old, pathetic, empty, meaningless life behind and never look back. This is what happens when the gospel really grips a person. He catches a glimpse of the beauty and power of Jesus Christ, and of what his life could be...what it should be. And suddenly his old life loses all of its appeal. He must leave it behind. He would rather die than stay trapped in his old life, to keep lying on that bed. So he rises. And if Jesus had not first healed him, even this attempt to rise would have been laughable. But Christ had healed him, and so he rises. And his life will never be the same.

I love the Word of God.