Day 5
John 5:5-8
One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”
In the first verses of this chapter, we see Jesus ask a man who had been sick for 38 years if he would like to “be made well.” The word “well” here is the Greek word “hugies,” which means physical healing but can also refer to making one whole or complete. In other words, Jesus wasn’t just asking about the man’s physical sickness. He was asking about his wholeness in spirit, soul, and body. Jesus is offering you wholeness. He will absolutely heal your body, but the more profound work he wants to do happens in your soul. How does Jesus do this work of healing? By the word. He first asks the man a question: do you want this? That’s the invitation. But the man’s view was so fixed on his situation that instead of responding with his desire like Jesus asked, he responded based on the disappointment of his experience, saying, “I can’t” (NLT). He tells Jesus about the struggle he saw, but Jesus wasn’t speaking to his struggle; Jesus was speaking to his soul. When Jesus said, “Pick up your mat and walk,” He wasn’t talking to the man who had been lying in sickness for 38 years; he was speaking to the whole person God created him to be.
What is God telling you to do that contradicts what you see and who you’ve always been? How is he calling you to get up out of those cycles, get up out of that disappointment, get up out of that anxiety that you’ve seen for so long? What areas of your life have you been stuck in less than what God made you to be? What is your mat? Later, Jesus tells the man to sin no more so that something worse doesn’t happen to him. The command to walk was an invitation to walk in righteousness. While the word of God healed his sickness, the righteousness of God could keep him whole because deliverance is not just a moment. It’s a process. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 5:21). Only through an intimate relationship with Christ can our lives be made whole, but we must surrender the facts of our experience to the truth of his word. Get up and walk.
Next Steps
Read John chapter 5 and take notes, making observations and asking questions as you read.
Mediate on 1 or 2 verses that stood out to you. Focus on what they reveal about God and how the Spirit is inviting you to respond. Find a helpful guide to biblical meditation here.
Write down whatever the Holy Spirit puts on your heart.
Reflection Questions
In what area do you think you need to be made whole?
In John 5:24, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life.” How does belief lead to eternal life?
Did the lame man have to believe Jesus before he was healed? Did he have to believe in Jesus to be made whole?
Prayer Points
Lord, help me to see whatever way I’ve gotten comfortable in my dysfunction and give me enough faith to believe that you can deliver me (John 5:6)
God make me whole and give me the grace to break every cycle of sin (John 5:14)
Lord, as I draw closer to you, allow me to see myself how you see me and walk in my God-given identity.
