DO YOU WANT TO B E MADE WELL?

We read the very interesting story of a man’s healing in John 5:1-9 NKJV

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.

I do not understand why an angel at certain times would come down and stir the waters, and only the first person who stepped into the water of the Pool of Bethesda was healed. Here was a man who had had a major sickness for 38 years, we don’t know how long he had sat at the pool’s edge, it would be assumed he had family and/or friends who would bring him down daily and then bring him home at night. However long it was he sure showed a lot of hope and patience, and yet he was still unhealed. UNTIL Jesus came on the scene, Jesus knew this was a long standing health issue, and Jesus asked the man a question. DO YOU WANT TO BE MADE WELL? We Aussies would have quickly replied, “what a stupid question, I am not sitting here for the fun of it” but graciously the man responded “I make a move but someone always beats me to it!!!! He at least was indicating he was trying to do his part in the healing process. So often many sit around, waiting for their miracle and not co-operating and doing their part in the healing process.

I have come to see that many times we ask God for something and then sit around waiting for God to do His part (without any co-operation from us). Some people make a decision (say about finance) and call it a “step of faith” but make no practical steps in their power to help bring about change. Some churches say, “Jesus said he will build His Church, and sit around waiting for it to happen, when Jesus was saying “I will build my Church through you”.

I have been asking the Lord for healing in a particular area in my body, and for years have been waiting for Jesus to give me an instantaneous miracle, I have come to see that in my particular situation I have a MAJOR part to play in the healing process. It is not going to happen overnight, (it will take quite a number of months, and there is going to be a COST). When the realisation came I thought, (like the man at the pool) THIS IS TOO HARD I CAN’T DO IT, then I decided to ask for prayer, (and even thing about Jesus making intercession for me) AND GOD IS ANWERING PRAYER (not in my case an instant miracle) but a DAILY MIRACLE. I had to come to see that I had to do my part, and God would do His part, and I want today to give thanks for what is happening. Jesus’s question to the man at the pool rings in my ears, and the question that I feel He was asking me, needed not to just contain general information, but it had to become REVELATION to this man, and this (for me) has CHANGED EVERYTHING. By the grace of God I am starting to RISE UP AND WALK Hallelujah.

I trust this makes sense to you, and will be a challenge and a blessing to you.