The Cost of Being Healed

The Cost of Being Healed

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent. Each weekday morning, we’re going to spend a few minutes in a passage in John. Here’s the goal: read it, pray it, share it. Every post will have a passage of Scripture, a short prayer, and a question to meditate on and talk about. In a few minutes every day, we can prepare our hearts for all that God has planned in this season of Lent. 

Read: John 5:1-9
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. [2] Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. [3] In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. [5] One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. [6] When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” [7] 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.” [8] Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” [9] And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.” (ESV)

Thirty-eight years. It’s hard to even imagine being at the pool every day for nearly four decades and never being healed. It brings Jesus’ question into focus; “do you want to be healed?” Being healed would mean a whole new life. New friends, new routines, new identity. There was risk involved in being healed.

Sometimes we have this same kind of relationship with our sin. We’re tempted to pray like Augustine, “Lord make me pure, but not yet!” It’s risky to leave old habits behind. From the outside looking in, though, it’s as simple as the question Jesus puts to this man, “do you want to be healed?” Do you want to be free and everything that comes with that? This is a story of healing, but it’s also a story of surrender. He left the lifestyle of hoping to be healed by the powers of the pool and surrendered to being totally healed by Christ. When he got up that day, it wasn’t just his legs that had been healed; his heart was healed as well.

Pray:
God, give me the courage to walk in freedom from my sin. If I need healing, give me the courage to ask. When I need to be set back on the right course, help me to come to you. Thank you for taking me as I am and giving me everything I need to be transformed. Amen

Share:
Do you identify at all with Jesus’ question, “Do you want to be healed?” Have you had moments where you were tempted to pray like Augustine?

If God were going to rescue you from something in your life, what would it be? What would it cost you?