"Do You Want To Become Well?", by Pastor Kevin Lynch

"Do you want to become well?" Jesus asks a crippled man this question in John 5:6.

It's a reasonable question after observing a man who had reputedly reclined by the side of the Healing Pool of Bethesda for some 38 years hoping to get his opportunity to be healed.

You see, every day an Angel would come and stir the waters of the pool. The first person to enter the pool would be healed.

I don't think anyone wants to be crippled. I don't think that anybody wants to be afflicted with anything.

However, paradoxically speaking, there are some who while not enjoying being afflicted, don't really want to be healed either.

If that's not true, then why the question, "Do you want to get well?"

Actually, the Amplified puts it better: "Are you really in earnest about getting well?"

Let's be frank here. Are we really going to believe that in 38 years of waiting for an opportunity to enter the pool, this guy never once was able to make it happen? He had no one to place him strategically by the edge so that no matter how compromised he was he couldn't simply roll over and fall into the pool?

If I was a betting person I'd wager a bet that Jesus was thinking the EXACT same thing.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Jesus left him with no excuse. Do you want to get well or not?

You'll note that the man never answered Jesus' question. Instead he whined and complained.

" (7) The invalid answered, Sir, I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool; but while I am trying to come [into it] myself, somebody else steps down ahead of me."

He was a perennial. Thirty-eight years of the same excuse. Honed to perfection. Aged over time. He had it down pat.

Jesus didn't argue with him or discuss it. He simply did what Jesus does.

I want you to catch what I just said:

JESUS DID WHAT JESUS DOES!

"(8) Jesus said to him, Get up! Pick up your bed (sleeping pad) and walk!"

How long have you been waiting in recline? When it comes to healing, whether physical, emotional, spiritual, or material, recline leads to decline.

If you do not earnestly present yourself before the Master Healer, the Great Physician, for your needs, your recline will eventually lead you into decline.

Decline leads to death. Spiritual as well as physical.

I'm not sure what some people are waiting for. Is it too simple? Is it so simple that while waiting for some more grandiose manifestation a person could actually expire while waiting?

Absolutely! That man by the pool would have died by that pool, with healing just inches away, if Jesus had not said in essence, "Enough! Get up and walk!"

The results were dramatic, and we have no reason to believe our results wouldn't be just as dramatic.

"(9) Instantly the man became well and recovered his strength and picked up his bed and walked."

That's you today. Be that today.

See, there's nothing for you to "do". Just be you. In all of your distress and ailment today, just be you. But, be you in front of Jesus! This is not a test. This is not a begging session. This is the compassion of your Creator who has exhibited continuously throughout the Gospels that He wants you well.

The only one you have to depend on today is Jesus. Trust Him today, won't you?

Remember: JESUS DID WHAT JESUS DOES!

He will do what He does for you.

Jesus NEVER fails!

Keepin' it Real,

Pastor Kevin <><