Brown's Daily Word 10-02-09

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this awesome Autumn day the Lord has made. It is getting to be colorful and brilliant all around. Jesus makes all things colorful and magnificent. Wish you were here. It is breath taking to gaze around and ponder how our Lord changes the seasons. Best of all, He changes our lives. He makes them beautiful and colorful in His time.
Sir Isaac Newton’s “First Law of Motion” states, “Everything continues in a state of rest unless it is compelled to change by forces impressed upon it!” I think we all recognize within ourselves the need for change. Yet we also recognized that the change we need is often hard to achieve.
There is a very important story about change recorded in John 5. Jesus had gone up from Cana, in the Galilee region, to Jerusalem to celebrate one of the great religious feasts. When he had entered the city, he came to the pool of Bethesda where, lying all around the pool, were sick and paralyzed people. They were there because of a legend that an angel would from time to time come and stir up the waters of the pool, and the first one to enter the pool after the angel stirred the water would be healed. It was probably a mere superstition, but it was the last hope for many of these people. It was not unlike what is still found in many parts of the world today. Lourdes, in southern France, has a spa which many believe has healing capacities. The shrine of Guadalupe, in Mexico City, is another such place were thousands have gone hoping for a healing.
Jesus moved into the midst of such a group of hopefuls, but Jesus did not indiscriminately heal everyone at that the pool that day. Instead, as He moved among the blind and the lame, he was drawn to one particular man who had been ill for 38 years. Out of all these people Jesus chose to heal one man. It could have been because Jesus knew that the man had been lying there for 38 years, but there may have been other reasons that Jesus had compassion on him. One thing we do know from this scripture is that it was not because the man sought Jesus’ help. In fact, he did not even know who Jesus was.
“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?"
This seems a strange question to ask a man who has been sick and an invalid for nearly forty years. Yet, Jesus never asked a foolish question in his life; therefore it is obviously it was important for this man to answer, at least to himself, the question, “Do I really want to be changed?” It is entirely possible that he does not “really” want to be changed.
For thirty-eight years this man was a beggar who lived by the pity of others. If he were to be healed he would lose all of this. He would be venturing out into the unknown, lose all his present securities, and need to be responsible for himself. He would have to find work, and in so doing he would be entering a whole new world. It would be the equivalent today of asking a person who had lived on welfare if they were willing to give it up in order to be well. To be healed meant to enter in a completely new life, one with wonderful possibilities, but also with risk.
This man was not unlike many people in our own day who are paralyzed in heart and mind. Though their lives are dysfunctional, they have never considered that God might have something for them. They have learned to live dysfunctionally, not recognizing that there is more to life. They have become satisfied with subsisting. They do not seek God or call out to him. It is as though they are sick and unaware of it. Or, if they are aware of it, it seems normal to them.
For many, even after we are saved, we continue to be confronted by issues in our lives that need to be changed, like bitterness, unresolved conflicts and things that have lie hidden within us for years. The question is, “Do we really want to change?” The question that Jesus asked the paralyzed man, that seemed unnecessary or even ridiculous, was relevant for him and for us!
“The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me."
He did not answer Jesus’ question. Instead, he dismissed Jesus’ question and merely complained about his condition. He told of his misfortune and rehearsed his list of troubles.
We are all familiar with the term, “victimization.” It what happens when a person always sees themselves as a victim, a victim of society, or a victim of their upbringing. They are the people who continue to see themselves as been a dealt a lousy hand of cards in life rather than setting about to rectify the situation. Dr. William Glasser, founder of “Reality Therapy,” stated that, “Healthy people do not make excuses." He used as an example the tendency people have to make excuses when they are late for an appointment. They will say traffic was heavy, they got a last-second phone call, a crisis came up at the office and so on. Dr. Glasser argued that those kinds of excuses cover up the real issue. If you’re late, it is because you are incompetent to run your own life. He suggested that instead of making a lame excuse the next time you’re late, simply say, “I’m sorry. I guess I am incompetent to run my own life.” It is only when we stop making excuses that we discover that we have the power to be on time.
“Jesus said to him, 'Rise, take up your bed and walk.' And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath.”
Jesus did not discuss the pool or its alleged abilities to provide a cure, He simply told the man to get up, take up your bed and walk. The man was healed, but he was not healed by water.
Jesus told him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." Obviously the man now could listen and ignore, listen and hope, or he could listen and obey. In his challenge to “take up his bed” the Lord is telling him (and all those who truly want to change), something very important. We must not make any provision to go back. According to verse fourteen later Jesus found this man in the temple, and said to him, "See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you." Jesus has the authority over sickness, sin and Satan. He commanded the man to rise up and walk in the newness of life. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and for ever. Blessed be His Name,

In Him,
Brown


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d61LamkXfwk