A Little Help Here

^“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.”

John 5:5-7

 

Jesus, why do you ask if he wants to be well, the guy clearly has been seeking healing for 38 years!!!  Even more shocking is the answer Jesus gets.  If Jesus asked me this question, the answer would be simple, “Yes please.”  Instead Jesus is given excuses for why it has not already happened.

 

It’s easy to look down on the man for not just saying, yes to Jesus, but are we much different?  In any 12 step program, the first step is reaching an awareness of your need for change or healing.  “Hi my name is Tony, and I’m an alcoholic.”  Once you have an awareness of your need for change, the remaining steps involve your action and involvement.  Jesus question perhaps is less about the man’s desire to be healed, but instead are you ready and willing to be healed?

 

You want to be healed financially; to get out of debt, to put some money away, Jesus says do you want to be healed?  Walk away from finding joy in a shopping bag, or happiness in the latest gadget.

 

You want healing in your relationship with your kids; Jesus says do you want to be healed?  Taking on an extra project at work or agreeing to more travel may not help you find what you are looking for.  Joining another club, or working more from home and likely not going to lead you to the place of healing you are seeking either.

 

You want healing in a broken relationship; Jesus says do you want to be healed?  Holding a grudge, or starting rumors about the other person are not going to lead you down the path to healing.

 

Do you want to be healed?  Jesus reminds us that he is the great physician, able to heal both the body and the soul.  Jesus reminds us in scripture, “I am…” I am what you need, I am the great physician.  Are you open to the great physician?  Or are you filled with excuses?  Or just not listening for His work all around you?

 

Pastor Bill

 

Discussion Questions

1. What is one place that you want Jesus’ healing in your life?
2. What might healing look like?

End of the Rope

I loved to play dodge ball when I was younger.  There was just one part of the game that I did not like.  The feeling I got when the game was almost over, and it was 5 on 1, 6 on 1.  The part when you felt the other team ganging up on you.  I thought to myself; just hold your breath it will be over in a minute!!!  There was not a bone in my body that thought I had any chance of winning, let alone coming out of that game well. The best way to describe that moment was simply bad.

The apostle Paul knew this feeling well.  During his ministry he was beat up, arrested, run out of town, and threatened with his life.  In 2 Corinthians Paul is writing to a community backing him into a corner, ready to throw him out and Paul writes, “But he (Jesus) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10 NIV)  When we are weak, then God is strong.  That sounds great, but to believe it is a whole other thing.  Instead, many of us have another way of describing those times of struggle and hardship in life.

A good friend of mine Christopher Wolf says it this way in his book, Giving Faith A Second Chance, “Desperate.  Empty.  Trapped.  Forsaken.  These are words that describe the end-of-the-rope experience…because even worse at the end of the rope we just don’t know which way to reach.”  When life beats us up, when we feel like we are at the end of our rope, we are left with Paul’s encouragement, when I am weak, God is strong.

We struggle because at the end of our rope we believe that we are alone.  We have to take on our struggles out of our own strength.  That there is no way we can overcome those odds.  Paul reminds us that in that weakness we can lean into the strength of God.  That in our very weakest moment God’s strength can overtake our struggles.  It says it this way in Romans 8:31, “What, then, shall we say in response to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?”  At the end of the day, life may not be easy, but we can take heart, knowing there is someone far bigger, far stronger, and far more powerful, who is looking out for us, so that when life seems to gang up on us, and back us into a corner, we can know that we don’t stand there alone.

Pastor Bill

A Little Help Here

Monday morning as I grabbed the paper, I checked out the headlines as I walked back to the house.  The headline on the front page read, “The Recession is over!!”  I would guess that as people across the country read this, few felt their stress lessen, or their worries about our current climate diminish.  I have been reflecting on stress and worry and biblically what we are told about it, and how to handle it.

Jesus says this about worry, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life… Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they…Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”(Matthew 6:25-26, 34 ESV)  We read about worry in 1 Peter, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7, TNIV)  Yet I would guess often our prayers sound more like this, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24, TNIV)  So now what?  We live lives that will always have reasons that could cause us stress and worry.  We are faced with finances, jobs, family, friends, church, and other organizations that ask for our time and resources.  Yet we read scriptures verses that say, don’t worry, because God will provide, God will be there for you.

Before we go any further we have to remember one important thing, we are not meant to bear these burdens alone.  Throughout scripture we read about the importance of community.  We read in Ecclesiastes that, “Two are better than one,“ (Ecclesiastes 4:9, TNIV), Galatians tells us that we are to bear one another’s burdens so that we fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2)  We see that we are not made to handle those burdens alone, that instead God made us to handle it together, in community.  This is part of what the Body of Christ does, bear one another’s burdens, care for each other, and walk with each other through periods of life, to share life together.

So as we walk through life remember, we are not meant to do it alone.  Each of us will echo the prayer from Luke, help my unbelief, perhaps more than we would like to admit.  But it is in those times we can turn to one another for support.  We can find a small group, or accountability partner, or another form of support through Christians we interact with.  Stress and worry will always creep into our lives, but we have around us a community of believers to support us in those times of stress, to pray for each other, to encourage one another, and to walk with each other.