Help Me God, I Feel Helpless Series

When we’ve sifted and sorted through our heart, spirit and mind, what we may discover is that we want to be fully alive. Deep down we want to love and to be loved, and to draw close to the powerful love of God.

I think deep down we want our lives to be about something much larger than ourselves and our worries, concerns and problems. We want our lives to be full of light, to be blessed and to be a blessing to others.

When it comes to healing, Jesus doesn’t appear out of nowhere, waving a magic wand. What Jesus asks is more demanding than that, and more costly. We need to accept His healing so we can become the very person God is calling us to be.

Maybe we aren’t feeling helpless enough. We’re not ready to give up on our own efforts to solve our problems. We’re not ready to admit we cannot make it on our own. We’re still determined to get into the water on our own. If so, Jesus can't do anything for us.

If we identify with this man, and the Lord is asking us, "Do you want to be made well?" and if we say, "Not yet," or, "No, I don't," then there is no reason to expect anything more.

But this man at the pool of Bethesda wants to be healed. While he didn’t give a direct answer to Jesus, and while it was messy, I believe he wanted healing, but didn’t know how it could happen.

He basically said, “Yes, I want to be healed, but I can’t. I've tried, I've done everything I know how. I want to get into that water, I want to be healed, I’ve really tried, but I’m slow. There’s no one to help me. I've given up. I have no hope.”

Notice all of the I’s in that kind of answer? We can easily be like that man. So we give up, feeling helpless. But if we give up in whatever situation we face, we will have resigned ourselves to less than what God can provide.

But Jesus is standing there and He offers the solution to each of us. Jesus speaks, and His response is short and clear: “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.

It was when the man acted in obedience to the word of the Lord that gave evidence to his healing. You will notice the man didn’t need to climb into the pool in order to be healed. Whenever we say yes to Jesus, healing comes our way. His strength meets our helplessness.

It may not just be physical healing we desire, it may be spiritual, it may occur in our heart. We may need to let go of something to find true and total healing.

Jesus said not only “rise up”, but also “walk”. The scripture says the man had an infirmity, he was an invalid. He had some weakness or frailness that prevented him from walking about as other men.

What a picture of the sinner who is lost and separated from God by his sins. Regardless of what he tries, the sinner is still lost and unable to walk in the ways of the Lord.

Notice later verse 14 how Jesus gives further instruction to the man who was healed. It says, Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.”