Do you want to be well?

John 5:6 Jesus, when He saw this one lying there and knew that he had been sick a long time already, said to him, “Do you want to become well?”

John 5:10 The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, “It is the Sabbath day; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.”

There is a critical clue many miss when they are looking for help from God. The clue is God always tells us
something to believe, something to do or act on.

All of us have lived around the pool of Bethesda. We have been spiritually blind, emotionally lame, and morally paralyzed. Some of us have been positioned there so long, that we hang on to hope only by a thread.

We can all see ourselves, in a sense, helpless, weak, crippled and lame, lying at the pool of Bethesda this morning. We all need help. Each of us finds ourselves paralyzed at times, unable to do the thing we want or ought to do. We find we are lame: we do not walk very well spiritually.

Jesus Wants Us To Be Well.

John 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been in that state a long time, He said unto him, “Do you want to be well?”

John 5:8 Jesus said unto him, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.”

So this miracle was not about his faith. It starts out with a demonstration of the compassion of Jesus, and the man’s response.

The compassion of God is revealed early to us in the fact that He went after fallen Adam and Eve. He gives us a chance through His blood to be made right with Him.

In the case of this man, his sickness was related to his sin. We do not know any more than that. Jesus said ‘you’ve been made well, now you need to go a different direction, away from the sin that has marked your life.’ You’ve been made well; now go, and sin no more.

Religion Often Prevents Well Being

John 5:10 So the Jews were saying to the one who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permitted for you to pick up the mat!”

Jesus performed this miracle on the Sabbath and that became the point of argument in the next four chapters. Why the fuss over a day? Because people want rules, not grace. They want to boast about what they did to earn merit from God. That attitude opposes the gospel.

They ‘couldn’t care less’ whether this man was healed and could walk. They have nothing but contempt for that man, and nothing but contempt for Jesus and what He has done.

Do You Want To Be Well

John 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been in that state a long time, He said unto him, “Do you want to be well?”

On the surface, the question has an obvious answer of yes! Below the surface is a profound question for us. Do we really want to be made well? We can get to the point that we love our woundedness and we nurture our sickness. We can remain victims for a lifetime. Old habits are hard to break. Old ways of thinking are hard to abandon. Old, painful memories that have defined us for years require courage and resolve to let God transform.

God’s power is always at work, but our ability to respond and obey is working side by side with God’s power.

We must be willing to take the necessary steps with God, to provide our healing. Most often, it involves a simple step of obedience to God’s Word.

What is our response to that question today, Do we want to be well?

We are here, Jesus is here, and we are sick. You may say “I’m not sick!” We are all sick; sin has made us so. We need to be healed: some of us are blind, some of us are lame, some powerless, and some are weak. God will show you, and He will help you, if you are willing.

We are lame, in that we do not have all that it takes to do what Jesus expects us to do. We are bound by a habit, we are blind, in that we cannot see what Jesus desires for us in this life. We all need His healing today.

One of the things that is true this morning as our Lord moves among us, is that He will only ask this question of those who want to be healed. He will say nothing to those who do not. Some of us are not ready to give up on human efforts to solve our problems. Some are simply not ready to admit they cannot make it on their own.

There is a critical clue or step many miss when they are looking for help from God: There is always something God tells us to believe, to do, and to act on. As you step into your future, choose to be well, in all the ways that matter most, with God’s help.