A direct question calls for a direct answer. If Jesus comes to me and asks, “Do you want to be healed?” the answer is either “yes” or “no.” I either want to allow Him to change me from broken to healed, or I want to continue doing things my own way.
If my answer to His question, “Do you want to be healed?” is to explain why I can’t be healed, then I have not only avoided the question like a true politician, but I’ve also set up my own method for dealing with the problem as superior to His. Now that I am in the sixth decade of this life God has graced me with, I can look back on far too many times I’ve avoided seeing and hearing from Jesus because that would mess up my plan for taking care of the problem myself.
In John 5:1-15, a man who had been unable to walk for 38 years had a plan to heal himself. He got himself to the place where other people went for healing called the pool of Bethesda where he believed an angel would heal him if he could crawl into the water before the others. When Jesus came there, He asked the man, “Do you want to be healed?” But the lame man did not answer the question. Instead he explained to Jesus all the reasons why he could not be healed. “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” John 5:6-7.
Jesus chose to bless that man with a miracle despite his unwillingness to let go of his own plan–a plan he knew would never work. All it took for that man to be healed was to hear Jesus say, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” John 5:8. But that man didn’t even know who had healed him until Jesus found him again, revealed Himself, and rebuked him to “sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” John 5:14.
These days, I am trying to listen better, watch closer, and answer more directly when the Holy Spirit tries to get through to me. I want to be healed of my selfishness, my complacency, my willfulness, and especially any belief that is contrary to the word of God. Yes! I want to be healed of all physical and mental and emotional illnesses in me. And I want to allow Jesus to heal me much more than I want to stick to my own foolish plan that clearly has never worked anyway.
What is your answer? I pray it is a simple and humble Yes!
Amen and amen.
So You Will Know 