"Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, 'See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.'" - John 5:14
I was returning home after taking Cassidy back to college, when I pulled into a rest area late at night. It was me and a guy standing next to his car.
I looked his way, smiled, and said, "Hey! How ya' doin'?"
All in one motion, he responded, saying, "Great!" and then immediately pulled a lit cigarette from behind his back, took a big puff, and then started to cough as if there was no tomorrow.
"Poor guy," I thought, "if that's great, then I'd hate to see something less."
But in the very next instant, it dawned on me that the hey-I'm-great-even-while-smoking-and-coughing-cigarette guy must be exactly how all of us look to God. One moment, we're declaring our greatness. And the next moment, we do something to self-destruct.
Lord, have mercy.
And praise God, that in Jesus Christ, God does. God does have mercy on us. In many ways. Like today's Bible verse and the story it comes from. Jesus had just approached a guy who wasn't well and needed help. But when Jesus asked if the guy wanted to get well, then the guy said that he didn't have a helper. Of course, The Helper of all helpers, Jesus Christ, was standing right next to him. So Jesus just says to him, "Get up!" And the guy just pops to his feet as if to say, "I feel great!"
But apparently this guy that Jesus healed was a lot like my new momentary friend at the rest stop. Neither of them could stand prosperity. My friend was bent on tarring and feathering his lungs. Jesus's friend was bent on tarring and feathering his soul.
Some of us are like my friend. Hey, it's a free country.
But all of us are like Jesus' friend. Hey, it's a free world. And it is kinda crazy when ya think about it. It's like Jesus cleans our soul, and we just run right back to the mudhole. It must be exasperating for Jesus. It's like building a car wash right next to a perpetually muddy road.
So Jesus makes a strong suggestion, knowing fully well that we don't stand a chance of heeding his advice. Jesus said, "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you." (John 5:14)
And Jesus also knows that telling a sinner to stop sinning is like asking the University of Tennessee football team to stop the Oregon Ducks from scoring. It just ain't gonna happen without Divine intervention.
So Jesus, who's Divine as well as human, intervenes. After all, the only person who ever stopped sinning was the one who never started to begin with, namely, Jesus the Christ. And this Jesus wants to live in you by the power of the Holy Spirit so that the next time some crazy preacher asks you in the middle of the night how you're doing while you're stopped at an Alabama rest area, you can say, "Well, really, I myself am no good at all. (Cough, cough.) But the Jesus who's in me is workin' on it."
Trust in Jesus. Breathe him deep into your soul. He alone can change us from the inside to the out.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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