Do you want to get well? Part 2

OUR EXCUSES DO NOT STOP JESUS FROM WORKING IN OUR LIVES
Jesus asked this man, “Do you want to get well?” I’m thinking “YES!! Get me out of this nasty place, and I’ll move on!” But he made an excuse, “I can’t…people keep breaking line.” Breaking line!! That is a 3rd grade excuse, but here we see a grown man making the excuse. I think, after a little while, I could inch over, and when the water stirred, I’d finally get in and be healed,. . . if I really believed it would work.

Some people reading this may be making excuses as to why you do not get well spiritually. You are too busy, you are to tired, you’ve already done that, you are to young, you are to old, you just can’t. Whatever the excuse, God doesn’t back up and say, “Oh yeah. That’s right. I forgot about your situation. Just hang around and when you get a chance, come to me.” No friend God is passionate that His children get well. He is able to present you blameless before the Father and He is going to sanctify you.

Regardless of where you are in your Christian journey, you need to get well. We all have areas of our lives that need to be fined tuned and tweaked. Some of you may be spiritually stressed because you know you are being a fake. You know that you should be more faithful, but you can’t get over yourself and your fears. It is stressful being a fake. We’ve all done that, and you can admit it if you are honest. You may realize that you are more than sick; you may realize that you are dead. You are spiritually paralyzed. You may realize your sinfulness and that you have never been a child of God. If that is your case, you should repent and believe the Gospel. Trust Christ, my friend, and He will make you well. He is the only one Who can present you to God and you be able to stand and not melt like wax in a blazing furnace. You need saving…you need to get well.

So how can we apply what we have learned to our lives? Here are a couple of things.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO ANSWER THE PRIMARY QUESTION FOR THE DAY…”DO YOU WANT TO GET WELL?”
Jesus asked this question over 2000 years ago and He is asking it again to you today. “Do you want to get well?” You may like where you are and are not going to budge. You would rather worship in your tradition than to worship in Spirit and in truth. You would be happy to stay sick as long as you continue to get your way.

Regardless of where you are in your Christian life, you need to ask yourself this question. It doesn’t matter if you are closer to God than you have ever been, you still need to be healthier as a Christian. Build yourself up in the most Holy faith (Jude 20). I pray that you will ask the Lord to search your heart and see if there is any wicked way in you (Psalms 139:22). This will lead you to a deeper repentance and trust in the Lord to make you well by faith! I beg of you, please do not leave reading this article without honestly evaluating your spiritual condition. It may be your last opportunity to get well.

YOU MUST ALLOW JESUS TO BE A PART OF THE CHANGE PROCESS
If you keep going in the same direction, you will not get any better. We all need Divine intervention. Remember, nothing is too big or too small for God. The Lord desires to help His children be completely well. We must not rely on ourselves but upon Him to make us well. It is Christ who redeemed us and makes us well. He nurses us back to health with daily spiritual training. If we will submit our lives to the Lord we can become spiritually healthy. The biggest factor is allowing Christ to part of that process and not attempting this on our own. There is no need to put confidence in yourself; our confidence is in the Gospel and the power of Christ to transform us. It is a work of His grace!

Traveling as an itinerant preacher, I hear almost weekly from someone sharing with me about an area in their life where they desire prayer. Most of the time, it is a person trying to “do something” to make themselves better, and they haven’t fully submitted their lives unto the Lord. God seems to be allowing their spiritual sickness to occur so that they can learn that He is the only One on whom they can rely. He is the same Christ who made the lame man well at the pool of Bethesda who will make us well today. We need to cry out to the Lord and ask Him to heal us; He is the only One who can.