Healed and Helped

⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” ⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” ⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.- John 5:6-8 (NIV)

Oral Roberts is quoted as sharing how Jesus desires to heal the whole person, not just the part that is ailing them.  Jesus asked the man who laid among many invalids such as the blind and lame did he want to be made well.  He did not ask if the man wanted to get his feet healed or to get help moving into the pool as the angel troubled the water.  No, Jesus asked the man about his desire to be made whole.  Jesus asks this of the lame man by the pool.  The lame man lacked initiative to the point where he did not ask anything of Jesus.  When asked by Jesus, he just went into his sob story about not having anyone to push him into the pool.

Jesus did not ask that.

Despite the man's response, Jesus healed him.  Jesus helped him.  Jesus performed a miracle in the midst of the lame and the sick.  He did so for this man and commanded him to do something for himself, too.

Jesus expects the same of you.  He wants you to get up off your duff and do something.  He's not healing you from your wounds for your own good.  He's not helping you just for the sake of helping you.  I have said it before and I will say it again: God wants something for us and He wants something from us.  Perhaps, some of us are not getting what God wants for us because we are not giving God what He wants from us.