To Be Crippled

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?”

John 5:2-6 ESV

Have you ever had someone ask you what you thought was a dumb question? What Jesus asked this man probably seemed like a really dumb question to those who heard Him, “Do you want to be made well?” Thanks, Captian Obvious. Of course, I want to be healed, do you think I just come here to hang out and watch the fountain? I mean, here is this crippled man sitting at the side of the pool and the only reason people went there in the first place was to be healed from whatever they were afflicted with right? What kind of a question is that to be asking? Of course, this guy wanted to be healed. Who wouldn't want that? 

But by studying Jesus and His response I don't think Jesus was convinced this man really wanted to be healed. This man had been suffering from his condition for a long time, but he was not only crippled on the outside, he was crippled on the inside too.

Sometimes people get used to living with and inside their problems. While they may outwardly be going through the motions to get free (generally because they know that is what is expected of them), inwardly they have given up. They have simply quit on living. They don't think or believe that they are strong enough to break whatever chain is holding them back.

The first step toward breaking free from your chains and everything that binds and restricts your life is wanting it--I mean really want it. It is the point you get to when you can no longer stand the stench of the life you are living. You can no longer simply lie there and die. You want to get up off your mat and kick life in the nuts again. It is not giving up, no matter what the professionals say. But you have more work to do than simply putting your feet on the floor. You have to stand up on the inside before you can ever stand up on the outside. You have to nail down the "you" in the equation and allow the Holy Spirit to change you from the inside out. It will take redirection and you have to allow new ownership over the life.

But let me get very real for a minute (where I come from we call it "meddlin') and I am going to ask you the same question I have been asked recently: Do you really want to be made well? Do you really want things in your life to change? Or have you got used to a life under the devil’s boot heel? Are you so satisfied to live in bondage and sin that you can't see any other way?

If you are like me and you are tired of all the defeat, living in mediocrity and you want to break the chains of bondage, then stand up on the inside and say, “Enough is enough!” Cry out to the One that hears us all! Ask God to come and step into the place you have made! He has promised us that He will hear us and He will clean up the messes that we have made. And that my friend is the first step towards a life lived in true freedom.