WORD OF GOD - JN 5:5-9

JOHN 5:5-9

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

---- mine,

A man was lying beside the pool at Beth-zatha for thirty-eight years too ill to move? All that time he had been feeling sorry for himself because there was no one to put him into the pool when the water was stirred up. I saw him and approached him and said, 'Do you want to be made well?' The obvious response should have been an eager, 'Yes, I do.' Instead, he voiced the distress that had plagued him all those years, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Are you in any way like him? Are you so caught up feeling sorry for yourself that you have forgotten that I am right here beside you saying to you what I said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?' And waiting for you to say eagerly and expectantly, 'Yes Lord, I do wish You to heal my whole being, heart, mind, soul, body, and spirit. Heal me, Lord, heal me.' And you will hear Me say to you as I did to that man, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’