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Do you want to get well?

Do you want to get well?
Words of Faith 10-5-16
Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy © 2016
Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com
Faith Fellowship Church - Melbourne, FL
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John 5
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. [2] Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. [3] Here a great number of disabled people used to lie--the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [5] One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. [6] When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"
[7] "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."
[8] Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." [9] At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

Thirty-eight years is a long time. It is a long time to work on a goal. It is a long time to be married. It is a long time to work for a company. But it is an unbearably long time to suffer. But suffer this man did.
For thirty-eight years relatives or friends probably carried him and set him near the pool where it was believed healing could be found. We don’t know how old the man was. He may have been disabled as a child. We know that he must have been weak and feeling quite hopeless.
Jesus saw the man and asked what appears to be a dumb question. "Do you want to get well?" Who would not want to be healed from utter helplessness? Yet truly, this question is most profound. It goes beyond just the hopelessness of this particular situation.
The truth is that we grow to be comfortable with our maladies. We get used to our paralysis. We even build our identity around our addictions and afflictions so that it is very hard to turn loose of them. It would be centuries before physicians and therapists would come to this wisdom and ask the same sort of question before entering into a treatment plan. Do you want to get well? One must want to get well before progress can be made.
The initial response of the man is interesting. "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." It is essentially the voice of a victim. No one will help me. I am helpless. They get in my way.
This is the reaction we so often have when we are just plain stuck. If I could just get some help. If only someone were on my side. I just don’t get the breaks that others get. They push me out of the way. It is a picture of hopeless helplessness.
Into this hopelessness Jesus then asked the man to do the impossible. He asked him to get up, pick up his mat and walk. He did not lecture the man, scold him, or try to inspire him. Jesus did not pull him up or help in any way. He simply called him to get up.
To get up from that place after so many years was an absolute, remarkable, and undeniable miracle. Muscles atrophy. Bones become weak and misshapen. Yet this man stood up on legs that grew stronger with every moment.
The man did one more important thing. Jesus had called him to take up his mat. His mat was his place of infirmity. To take up his mat meant that he did not intend to go back to his place of infirmity. He did not need a place in line at the pool any more. He did not need that small zone of sickness. He did not need a provision for a place of infirmity to which he would never return.
When we get stuck these same questions are important for us.
1) Do I want to get well? Really? Or do I like my malady? My identity? Am I comfortable with my sin, affliction or addiction?
2) Am I ready to stop blaming others? Am I ready to get up and walk?
3) Am I willing to take up my mat, to remove the trappings of my affliction so as never to return to it?

Lord, thank You for Your call to walk in freedom. Give me faith to hear Your voice and rise from the places where I have been stuck. In Jesus’ Name.

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© Jeffrey D. Hoy 2002, 2016
Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy - Faith Fellowship Church (EFCA)
2820 Business Center Blvd.
Melbourne, Florida 32940 (321)-259-7200
Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com
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The Words of Faith devotion is published five days a week by E-mail excluding Federal holidays. Please feel free to forward this devotion to a friend who might be blessed by this devotion. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is quoted from the New International Version (R) of The Holy Bible. Copyright (c) 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Words of Faith (c) 1997, 2010 Jeffrey D. Hoy. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward this copyrighted material or use portions of it with appropriate notation of the source for non-profit purposes.