Quest 24
Are you willing to settle for half a life?
1. He was an invisible man.
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
There are invisible people around us all the time – forgotten and friendless.
Jesus sought him out - When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time.
You are not invisible to Jesus.
2. He was a man at home with his problems.
He said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 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 going another steps down before me.”
It was bad, but not that bad. He had survived for 38 years.
He was hopeless.
He was locked into a victim mentality.
3. He was asked to do what he could not do.
Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
When the stranger asked him to get up, he did the thing he had not been able to do.
With every command of God comes the power to accomplish it.
4. He wasn’t healed of his ingratitude and self-protection.
“Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place Afterward Jesus found him in the temple…. The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
He had no desire to shield Jesus - only to protect himself.
There’s always the danger of getting what you want from God and then kicking him to the curb.
5. He was warned.
“See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
Jesus was clear about what could be worse (Luke 12:4-5) - “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!”
For the Christian, there is a warning about worse (2 Peter 2:20-21) - For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
6. Do not settle for half a life.
The paralyzed man settled for half a life – the physical half.
The physical half of life is temporary (2 Corinthians 4:18) - For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
The complete life includes the spiritual half (Romans 8:18) - For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
