And Peter said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole; arise and make thy bed. And he arose immediately. Acts 9:34
Eight years as a palsy patient was a long and discouraging time. Poor Aeneas must have been pretty much resigned to permanent inability. Everything from his younger and healthier days was gone. He could no longer work or play; all of his able bodied friends would have moved on to others like themselves. Money would be an issue, and life would surely become a tedious drag. But a man arrives in town and begins to preach, and shortly makes his way to the spot where Aeneas is lying. What a contrast they would make: the big and rugged former Galilean fisherman facing a wasted and pathetic invalid on a mean cot. Peter makes a declaration and gives a command. Instantly, Aeneas is healed and becomes the talk of the town. What Peter told Aeneas would go well with the poor sinners and lazy saints around us today.
The Gospel message is the only message that will restore sinners to what they ought to be. All of the self-help books ever published, all of the personal improvement programs ever scheduled, can do nothing to rid us of the disease that is a million times worse than the palsy. In our unsaved days, we lacked any ability to please God or to serve Him in any capacity. But the entrance of the Gospel brought to us a vitality that loosened our dumb lips to sing His praise and energized our paralyzed frames to walk in His light. Whereas we at one time kept our bed of inability, we are now unbound and can find all of our fulfilment in our Lord’s presence. As Aeneas was instructed to make his bed of inability, so we set behind us the past life, to return to it no more.
Lazy Christians don’t seem to get it. With all of the abilities that our salvation has brought us into, they relax in the old habits of their unconverted days and exert no effort to be of service to God or a help to other believers. It is as though they had experienced no change. For them, we do well to question their salvation. Maybe they were never made whole at all. Or if they were, maybe they just never got around to making their bed.
As Christians, how do we made our bed? To start with, we can’t make a bed by staying in it. That is why Christians need to arise. We need to flex our new-found spiritual muscles with Bible reading, prayers, fellowship with the Lord’s people, and all of the other activities that are part of a Christian’s life. Making the bed also speaks of getting rid of all of the trappings that were associated with our sickness of sin, disposing of harmful habits and filthy companions, shunning the places of temptation and idleness. We make our bed and move on to the activities of the day and the light, the enjoyment of all that God has for His children.
We have been made whole. That is a gift that takes us to Heaven. We must make our bed. That is a work that frees us from this world. -Jim MacIntosh