Compass
John 5:9-10 “Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”
When the Bible says this miracle was done on the sabbath, you know that there is trouble coming. Telling the man that, “The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!” was a lie. It was actually a Pharisaic oral law, not the Mosaic Law. Read the rest of this entry
Instruction
2 Tim.3:16 “Every Scripture has been written by the Holy Spirit, the breath of God. It will empower you by its instruction and correction, giving you the strength to take the right direction and lead you deeper into the path of godliness.” (TPT]
John 5:7 “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.” God is focused on you, “Would you be made whole?” What do you want? Instead, you are focused on how your sister cheated you fifteen years ago. Read the rest of this entry
Refocus
Ps.121:1-2 “I will lift up my eyes to the hills [around Jerusalem, to sacred Mount Zion and Mount Moriah]—From whence shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” (AMPC].
We have to be totally unassuming when we are dealing with God. Sometimes, it is a pattern that God has established; the angel stirs the water, the first to get in gets healed. It was God that established it for them, but the man became fixated on it and it became his plan of how his healing would happen. Read the rest of this entry
Question vs. Answer
John 5:6-7 “…So Jesus said to him, “Do you truly long to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, there’s no way I can get healed, for I have no one who will lower me into the water when the angel comes. As soon as I try to crawl to the edge of the pool, someone else jumps in ahead of me.”
If Jesus was standing in front of you today asking, “Would you like to get well?”, what will your response be? We all need to wrestle with this. The word ‘well’ in today’s scripture reference could mean many things. Read the rest of this entry
Will You?
John 5:4 “For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” (KJV, emphasis added)
This was God’s way of showing the people that He wants them healed. Some people have argued that there was a spring, an underground supply of water that bubbled up and that is why the pool was bubbling and looked stirred. Read the rest of this entry
The Question, The Answer
Prov.20:12 “Ears to hear and eyes to see—both are gifts from the Lord.”
Our focus over the next few days is on John 5:1-15 [please read]. What was Jesus’ question and what was the man’s response? It would interest you to know that like this man by the pool, most people are not answering the questions they are being asked. Read the rest of this entry
Do Likewise
Gal.3:27-28 “And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Eph. 2:12-14 “In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.” (emphasis added). We are spiritual Jews; our operations, Christianity as Jesus wanted it is not a religion. His desire is to have a people that are separated for Him and for His Kingdom. Read the rest of this entry
The Mirror
John 4:7&9 “Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans…”
Why did the Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans? We began to answer this question yesterday and it will interest you to know that the enmity ran even deeper. We mentioned earlier that at the time John the Baptist and Jesus were in ministry there was a huge Rabbinic movement. Read the rest of this entry
