Tag Archives: pool of bethesda

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – Stand Up

Leave a comment

Max Lucado

God’s efforts are strongest when our efforts are useless!  I want you to listen to some revealing dialogue between a man who’d been paralyzed for years. Jesus encounters him at the pool of Bethesda where he’d gone hoping to get into the healing waters (John 5).

Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be well?”

“Sir, there is no one to help me get into the pool. While I’m coming to the water, someone else always gets in before me.”

“Stand up,” Jesus respond.  “Pick up your mat and walk.”

“And immediately the man picked up his mat and began to walk.”

I wish we would do that; I wish we would take Jesus at His word. I wish we would learn that when He says something, it happens. What is this peculiar paralysis that confines us? What is this stubborn unwillingness to be healed? When Jesus tells us to stand—let’s stand!  Yes, God’s efforts are strongest when our efforts are useless.  So, let’s lean upon Him!

Uncategorized

Alistair Begg – Partial Knowledge

Leave a comment

 

The man who had been healed did not know who it was.  John 5:13

Years pass quickly for the happy and the healthy; but thirty-eight years of disease must have seemed like forever in the life of the poor impotent man. When Jesus, therefore, healed him by a word while he lay at the pool of Bethesda, the man was delightfully aware of a change. Even so the sinner who has for weeks and months been paralyzed with despair and has wearily sighed for salvation is very conscious of the change when the Lord Jesus speaks the word of power and gives joy and peace in believing. The evil removed is too great to be removed without our discerning it; the life imparted is too remarkable to be possessed and remain inoperative; and the change is too marvelous not to be perceived.

Yet the poor man was ignorant of the author of his cure; he did not know this person, or the part that he played, or the plan that had brought Him among men. Hearts that feel the power of His blood may still be ignorant of His ways. We must not be too quick to condemn men for lack of knowledge; but where we can see the faith that saves the soul, we must believe that salvation has been bestowed. The Holy Spirit makes men penitents long before He makes them ministers; and he who believes what he knows shall soon know more clearly what he believes.

Ignorance is, however, an evil; for this poor man was much tantalized by the Pharisees and was quite unable to cope with them. It is good to be able to answer our critics; but we cannot do so if we do not know the Lord Jesus clearly and with understanding. The cure of his ignorance, however, soon followed the cure of his infirmity, for he was visited by the Lord in the temple; and after that gracious discourse, he was soon declaring to all “that it was Jesus who had healed him.” Lord, if You have saved me, show me Yourself, that I may declare You to the sons of men.