Do you have giant faith friends who will lower your mat through the roof?
“Now some men brought in a bed a man who was paralyzed. They searched for ways to bring him in and lay him before Him. When they could not find a way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his bed into their midst before Jesus. When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you” (Luke 5:18-20, MEV). I love this story.
The room, the house was full. These buddies were not going to let their friend go not healed. Not only did He receive His healing, but He received His deliverance. They had giant faith, crazy faith. They peeled apart the roof and lowered their buddy down. They were not going to take no for an answer.
We need to surround ourselves with these same crazy faith friends. Friends that will stand by us when we are believing for the impossible, because God’s Word says, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23, MEV).
We need friends when disease plagues us, divorce papers are served and employment challenges arise that will stand in crazy faith with us and believe for what the world would consider impossible. We need friends who will stand strong for us and with us when times get tough, job losses happen, a child reveals an unplanned pregnancy or addiction. We need crazy faith friends who will encourage us and pray with us for hours on end to make the impossible possible. We need friends who will not gossip, slander, judge or condemn, but will stand on faith of what the Word of God says.
Where do we gather such friends? We gather them by being that kind of friend. Standing alongside someone while they are believing for the impossible for their miracles. We gather friends by being nice, being loving and praying for people. We gather friends by loving our neighbor as ourselves. We also gather these friends by attending good churches, small groups and Bible studies, which are full of loving, caring people that will support you in a time of need.
Jesus had such friends. He had a close disciple who was leaning on Him. “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples whom Jesus loved,” (John 13:23). This disciple leaning on Jesus, scholars believe was probably John. Jesus had that one close friend like we have our best friends.
Jesus then had three that he allowed in His inner circle. The three were James, Peter and John as we see in Mark 5. He put all the other people out of the room except the mother and father and His closest circle when He raised the little girl from the dead. We continue to see through the Scriptures that Jesus was surrounded by His 12 disciples. These were some of his closest friends while He was here on earth.
We can model from Jesus and surround ourselves with loyal crazy faith friends. We have that one person in our life probably like John. We are close to this person, confide in this person and they are always there for us. They could be our mentor, spiritual parent or accountability partner. For some of us this could be our spouse who is also our best friend.
We should then have an inner circle of three friends who can lift us up in prayer and stand in faith for the crazy things in our life. They are our prayer circle. They are going to be there for us, meet with us and not let us down. When all others are talking about giving up and throwing in the towel, they will stand with you.
You should identify who are your closest three. It doesn’t have to be a clique or three friends who even know each other. These are three friends who will stand together with you in a time of need, that are important to you.
We all have friends. Our friends could be considered our 12, as Jesus had the disciples. He told the disciples some things, but told His inner three even more. He taught the 12, traveled with the 12 and demonstrated the love and power of God to the 12. They were his friends, but could all believe for the same, have the same purity and intentions? We see in the 12 there was pride, competition and jealousy and obviously doubt.
Who do you want to stand beside you in a time of need? Who do you want to walk along side you on a journey that you don’t even want to take? What about when those divorce papers get served, the cancer diagnosis manifests or the death of a loved one unexpectedly happens? Who do you want alongside of you believing for the miraculous things the Bible tells us we can have? Who do you want standing in faith with you for the dead raising, healing to manifest and that marriage to be restored?
We long for crazy radical faith friends who can pull up us when we feel like falling down. We need faithful friends who will encourage us to keep believing when we want to give in to doubt. We need friends who will pull us up spiritually and make us hike higher in the spiritual realm instead of wallowing in the pit of self-pity. We must have crazy faith friends.
As this man had crazy faith friends to pull the roof off of a packed out house and get him to Jesus for healing, who are going to be your crazy faith friends who do some things that may cost them their reputation, inspiring them do the impossible and encourage you along your way to victory.
Get yourself some crazy faith friends today and discover how your faith will rise just being around them!
Kathy DeGraw is the founder of DeGraw Ministries, a ministry releasing the love and power of God. She is a prophetic deliverance minister who travels hosting conferences, teaching schools and evangelistic love tours. Kathy enjoys writing and is the author of several books that educate, empower and equip people. For more information visit www.degrawministries.org.
Curt Landry 
Michael L. Brown 
Rabbi Eric Tokajer