Do You Want to be Made Well?

John 5:6
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?”

In the movie “instinct,” Cuba Gooding, Jr. plays a psychologist who is assigned a difficult patient, an anthropologist played by Anthony Hopkins. He is in a criminally insane mental hospital. Cuba is trying to help the doctor be free if he can only remember why he violently murdered some poachers in Rwanda. The psychologists discover a prison where a lot of men are sick because of their decisions and their surroundings. It is true, the crime they committed got them there but I was their prison thinking that kept them there. The guards had a system of letting the men go outside one at a time. Only the person with an “Ace” card could go outside for Recreation. Going outside was a privilege, a healing moment if you will. The problem was that only the strong benefited because they would bully the weak to get the Ace. The doctor changed the system and drew people’s names out of the box everyday to give everyone a fair chance of going outside for a taste of freedom. The doctor exclaimed, “Everybody goes outside! Everybody goes outside!”

What is it that is keeping you inside? What is it that is keeping you sick? Jesus found a difficult patient at the pool of Bethsaida. The belief was that an angel would visit the pool a certain time of day to stir up the waters. The first person in would be healed. Jesus found a man who had been there 38 years. He was approaching middle age and hadn’t moved! Many of us have been stuck in our place of potential healing a long time. Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be healed?” the man said, “every time I get ready to get in someone stronger gets in first.” Jesus came to change the system. It’s not about the quickest, or the smartest, or the strongest. Everybody gets healed! Everybody who has the faith and wants to be healed can get up and be healed! But the question is do you want to be healed?

If you want to be healed you need to do 3 things:

1. Rise up. When Jesus commands you to get up, no matter how comfortable you are you have to get up. For many of us it’s not that we are in prison but we’ve allowed prison to be in us. When a baby elephant is born into a circus. The trainer puts a chain around its ankle. As the Elephant grows the chain remains the same. The elephant as strong as he is could break the chain at any time when he is fully grown but the problem is that the chain is in his mind and he will never break free although he can. When Jesus tells you to break the chain he’s telling you to do something that you can but you have to be set free in your mind first. Do you want to be well ….than rise up!

2. Take up your bed. Whatever you’ve been depending on, get rid of false dependency. Get out of the bed of depression. Get out of the bed of lust and cyclical relationships. Get out of the bed of Laziness and go after your dreams. Get out of the bed of Self-pity and do it for yourself.

3. Walk. Go somewhere else. Get a change of scenery. Go somewhere you haven’t been before. You are getting too old to have only seen one particular scenery. Walk.

Dear God I do want to be healed. There are no excuses especially when you are standing over me telling me to get up. Thank you for changing the system and getting me out of this waiting room. I’m ready for total healing and I’m walking in my destiny.

In Jesus Name.
Amen.