"The man who healed me, told me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" John 5:11
I’ll never forget our trip to
Some of us can relate to the man Jesus healed at the pool of
Bethesda. Before our lives were forever changed by
Jesus Christ, before he ever told us to ‘pick up our mat and walk’, we were
unable to help ourselves to get better. We had
become spiritually paralyzed and emotionally indifferent thinking that things
would probably never change. After 38 years, this
man must have felt hopeless, with hardly any faith left, and numb to
feelings of pain or sorrow. In a strange
way, he had become comfortable with his misery.
In his mind, there was only one solution, get into the water when it’s
stirred, but that wasn’t happening. Like
him, we didn’t know the power of Jesus! We
didn’t know there was someone so compassionate he would intentionally seek us out.
We didn’t know there was someone so powerful he could heal us instantly!
When
Jesus heals us, he heals us for a purpose.
It’s not just so we can get relief from pain and our desperate
condition, He calls us to do something with our lives. He told the man to, “Stand, pick up your mat
and walk” (v8). When God heals you, it’s
time to pick up the pieces of your life and start moving forward. Second, when we are healed, Jesus calls us to
holiness. He told the man in verse 14 to
‘stop sinning’. Jesus not only wants us
to do something with our lives, he wants us to be a different person on the
inside. (Romans 6:19) Our healing, whether it’s physical,
emotional, or spiritual is seldom the way we imagine it. For some, their healing is in heaven. One thing is for sure, we are healed to serve others who also need healing,
and in doing so, will bring glory to Jesus Christ.
© 2009 David Soper, Inspired by the Word of God. All rights reserved. Scripture from New Living Translation