Healing is For the Ones Who Will Get Up and Walk.
The story is told in John Chapter 5. In Jerusalem, there was a pool called Bethesda. Crowds of sick people gathered there, hoping for a miracle. One man had been coming to the pool for 38 years. Jesus asked this man “Do you want to get well?” The man replied with excuses. He said, “Nobody will help me and I can’t help myself.” So Jesus told him to “get up, take up your bed and walk.”
What can we learn from the story of the man at the Pool of Bethesda? Many people are lying around waiting for help or a miracle from God to improve their situation. I believe Jesus would say, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” This applies to many situations.
Many people have made the government their god. They want the government to make people love them, keep them safe, and provide for their every need. But the government is a false god. If you want your situation to be made better, then you should stop depending on the government. Instead, you have to get up, look to Jesus for strength, and go to work.
Many Christians are wallowing in their besetting sins. They hope and pray that someone will help them or that God will miraculously save them from their chosen sin. Jesus asks, “Do you want to be free from your shame?” They make excuses: “I can’t change; nobody will help me.” But Jesus says, “You get up, listen to God, and walk away from your sinful choices.”
Most churches are praying for a supernatural stirring of a Holy Spirit revival. Maybe once a year they plan for a high-powered evangelist to come and help them to overcome their weakness. Meanwhile, Jesus is asking “Do you want to be made well?” Excuses are flying everywhere, (people won’t come to church, and people are not interested in Spiritual things). But God is not interested in your excuses. He says you get up, go into all the world and you make disciples of all kinds of people.
This is the bottom line. Many don’t want to hear this. No matter what your situation is, if you are not willing to make an effort to help yourself, God will let you sit there and rot. However, if you want to be made well, Jesus will offer healing. But you must choose to get up and walk.
Healing
“After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.
Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.
And that day was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.” He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’ ” Then they asked him, “Who is the Man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place.
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.”
John 5:1-15 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/jhn.5.1-15.NKJV
Douglas & Deborah Huff
From Down Where the Pavement Ends
Email- douglas@pavemententendsministry.com
