Do You Want to Be Healed? Moving Beyond Circumstances

“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.One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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?" 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." 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. Now that day was the Sabbath.”John 5:1-3, 5-9 Throughout the Bible, Christ encountered people who often felt trapped by their circumstances or limited by their wounds. With His love, power, and grace Jesus crushed their excuses and ignited their will to live by faith, not by sight.Paralyzed and alone, this man thought that he could never achieve healing on his own. He was paralyzed and the ole boy was in rough shape. He could see the means of his restoration but could never reach it. It seems almost as if this man had resigned himself to a life where what he wanted most could be seen but not attained. He had given up on the miracle he saw others experiencing.We can only break our dependency on defining ourselves by our circumstances if we wrestle with Jesus’ question, Do you want to get well? Read that again. If we genuinely desire wellness, in all areas of our lives, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, we need to let go of the labels we have allowed to define us. We have got to stop seeing ourselves as victims of our circumstances and instead start seeing our circumstances as subject to the authority and healing power of Jesus Christ. We are victors, not victims. Be Nice. Grace Wins.