After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. John 5:1-3 ESV

Bethesda - House of mercy

Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” John 5:5-6 NLT

Infirmity = Weakness

We may have to walk through the valley but we don’t have to camp there.

When we become so comfortable with our brokenness that we treat our failures like family, prayer becomes an obligatory Christian duty and obedient faith a step we aren’t compelled take.

Do you want to be whole?

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.” John 5:7 ESV

Don’t let truth about your trouble keep you from seeing the truth about your triumph!

Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. John 5:8-9 ESV

Get up!

When Jesus tells us to do something He gives us the grace we need to do it.

Change your posture!

Take up your bed

Own your issues and give them to God or they will own you and give you nothing but grief.

Walk!

You can’t stay where you are and get where you need to be!

Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” John 5:10-11 ESV

Don’t let your bed call you back to your brokenness.

Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” John 5:14 ESV