LifeLink Devotional

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

John 5:5-6 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?”

Once upon a time there was a rich man who lived in a huge mansion behind high walls and a secured gate. No one was ever allowed access, until one day the wealthy man had an idea. “I will go to the gate at four o’clock every afternoon and give one person a million dollars if they can prove to me that they need it.”

The next day he stood at the gate and asked people as they walked by if they needed a million dollars. Everyone said they did, but none could prove they needed it.

The next day, when he got to the gate, there was a line waiting to see him, each person offering some sort of reason or excuse why they needed the million dollars, but none sufficiently showed evidence that they had nothing. Having nothing was the proof necessary for the gift to be offered, and no one was interested in giving up everything they already had to become eligible.

On the third day, after refusing dozens of people in line, a man crawled forward, obviously unable to walk. He was dirty, barely clothed in rags, and reeking of a sickening stench from the inability to clean himself. He was the first person the wealthy benefactor had seen who truly had nothing.

He asked the crawling beggar if he wanted a million dollars. In a halting whisper of voice the man replied, “Sir, I have tried for years to make a way for myself, but with no success. I am today the most helpless and hopeless of men, with no ability to do anything for myself except wait for death to relieve me of my suffering.”

Moved with compassion, he did something far more gracious than offer the man a million dollars and send him on his way. He picked up the frail semblance of a man, opened the gate to his mansion, and took him inside. He bathed him, clothed him, fed him, and then said, “Whatever is mine is yours. You are a son to me.”

The next day, dozens of crippled, lame, blind, and helpless people somehow made their way to the gates of the mansion, waiting for the wealthy man to appear. And everyday, when he appeared, he would personally bring into his mansion anyone who truly had nothing.

This is what Jesus did for the man at the pool of Bethesda. This is what Jesus will do for you, if you will admit that you are helpless and hopeless to change the sin in your heart. He is waiting to make you His child.

Pastor John