Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.[b] 5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When 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."
8Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."
11But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.' "
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."
8Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."
11But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.' "
-John 5:2-11
I love this!
A man who had been sick, disabled by illness was just healed by Jesus. You would think that the people around him would join him in celebrating the wonderful thing that God has done in his life. But instead they begin to find fault in him. "How dare you pick up your mat?" "Don't you know it's the Sabbath?"
However, the man said something that struck me. He said, "The man who made me well said to me, Pick up yout mat and walk." Simple. I'm sure in his mind the man struggled with who to obey. The law of Moses or the One who just healed him. I'm sure being a Jew he knew the implications of picking up his mat on the Sabbath. Nevertheless he defied all that because something bigger than the law had happened to him. He had just had an encounter with Jesus Christ!
Our God doesn't want our empty formalities. He doesn't want us obeying because it is law. Rather He wants us obeying because we've experienced Him. Our obedience should come from a place of love and respect for a great King that we have encountered. Abraham gave Melchizedek a tithe not because he read in the law that it is good to tithe, but because he had just encountered the King of Righteousness.
Folks let us stop our empty formalities and let us really begin to encounter Jesus. Then will our obedience be true.
THEREFORE LET us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith [by which you turned] to God,
THEREFORE LET us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith [by which you turned] to God,
-Heb 6:1
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