Do You Want to Be Made Well?
From that thing that trips you and bars your dreams
It ties you down, trips you up, and keeps you from stepping through doorways of destiny/ different visions fulfilled. That thing.
"Do you want to be made well?" What a strange question. How thoroughly we know our weakness - the things that "if this happens, I always do this" When this triggers... I fall - over, and over, and over. Stuck. And you hate yourself for it. For one, it could be your character, anger, an approval drive, fears, your appetite, a secret sin, an addiction.... your responses.
Jesus asked the man lying at Bethesda, "Do you want to be made well?"
Today, that is your question.
John 5:5-6
5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?"
Do you want it? Because if you do, this is how you are going to get out of the state you've been in:
Do You want to be made well?
When God shows us a mess in our heart, sometimes we've been there, in that condition, a LONG time. We don't like it or the results we get. We know it's wrong. We know it will keep us from obtaining our deepest desires.... but.... it's what we've known. We're comfortable here. Familiar. - even though we don't like it.
What do you want at the end of the day?
.
When God shows you something, or speaks a dream into you, with that word comes a command to action. Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk." John 5:8
What has He told you to do? It's painful to look at the ugly He shows you and uncomfortable to make that move He calls for. But it's more painful to stay here another 38 years, and never reach your desire... to only watch others jump in and be fulfilled!... Compromise never fulfills.
The Command/ that Word/ that Dream.... it's going to cost you something:
.
A change, a transition. A letting go of the old to take hold of the new/ that dream on the other side of the doorway. A death in order for resurrection.
Obedience is the action required.
John 5:9 "And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked..." - Walked into his dream.
Recognize, with that action of obedience, grace picks you up. Grace is God's presence, empowering you to do what He asked of you in His ability.
What are you looking at? When God's word comes, that picture/ dream on the other side of the doorway is beautiful! But it's bigger than you, beyond your ability, and usually impossible. And then, you see the things that are obstacles to you (in this context: your character) God does not show you the mess in your heart to beat you down, but to say, "It's time now. You are ready to walk in this area - I want to set you free. Take My hand, and let's walk it out together." So, yes, God speaks the dream in you and often reveals the ugly, but it's so that you can step into the dream.
The Pointed Finger:
When God exposes the ugliness in you, the realization of it is often... very painful. And we, like the man on that mat, begin to point fingers: "This is why I'm here, why I'm like this, why it's everyone else's fault. - especially my parents." It's easier to blame because we don't have to look at the mess in our self. But neither do we get up and walk (into our dreams) because we are looking at them and the problem rather than the word Jesus spoke to us.
John 5:7 The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, (someone else) steps down before me."
>>>But... John 5:8
Jesus said to him, "Rise, (out of this state) take up your bed (this action of obedience) and walk (into the dream)." (NKJ)
You have a choice. How bad do you want it? And what do you want at the end of the day? This thing, this issue won't fit through the door God has opened for you. But here is where grace meets obedience. Yours... is the choice.
PART II
"Do you Want to Be Made Well?"
How to actually step into that freedom
When the Spirit & the Word meet the mess. / Where are your eyes?
I struggled for years trying and failing repeatedly to change me, get depressed/ angry with myself and then hit replay. Here, I want to touch on something God showed me and I’ve been sharing:
I asked an individual, "Do you want to be made well?" It takes the presence of the Holy Spirit Because you can't do it yourself. You keep going back to this thing like a hog to the mud and an addict to his drink. You can't seem to get beyond it like a dog who has worn the dirt in the circumference of his chain....
* You need something bigger than you. Stronger than you by yourself: the Holy Spirit of God
* You need a pull stronger than the pull of that sin/ that pleasure: the intimate presence of the Holy Spirit and the personal words He speaks over you.
Let me put the pieces together for you. Personal resolutions won't fix it. Your own discipline and strength aren't enough. You and I are proof of that!
It takes this:
1. Word Jesus/ God spoke to you in the beginning.
2. But then it requires the power of the Holy Spirit moving over the face of the deep (in your heart) to create what wasn't there before. (Go study Genesis 1 to see how this spiritual law works!) The Spirit's function is to transform the word of God in any given situation. Just look! The Holy Spirit was there, hovering over those waters but nothing happened until that word from God was spoken. THEN the Holy Spirit moved in - on that word - and created it.
3. What is my part: Your focus.
I have tried to break this verse up a little for the purpose of the study:
2 Corinthians 3:17-18
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the (Holy) Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with unveiled face, (give our focus) as in a mirror (to) the glory of the Lord...
...(and) are CHANGED into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the (Holy) Spirit of the Lord.
What do you see, friend? If what fills your thoughts is the shame, is the thing you go to when that trigger happens... then that thing will always be your response.
You are transformed into what you look at. It's a spiritual law that works like a room and a thermostat. Example: Your life is the room. The thermostat is the focus of your mind. That room reflects the temperature set by the thermostat of the mind whether good or bad. The image created by word of God to you is the temperature you are to set your focus to. The Holy Spirit is like the mechanics behind the thermostat gauge that actually CHANGE the temperature after you set it!!!
* Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to (the image of) this world: but be transformed (into the image shown in the word) by the renewing (resetting) of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God (with your life).
The battle is in the mind - for your focus. The enemy will want to get you offended, afraid, distracted, infatuated with something else to keep that temperature from changing. But keep it set to 65 F and the heat of 95 F will change.
Finally...
4. Obedience. Your feet follow your focus. Put action to the Word you heard (whether it is cutting something out of your life, letting a thing go. Doing or saying something - whatever He asked of you, do it.... And let the Holy Spirit work in you both to will and to do. (Philippians 2:13) Let Him create the change.
Recommended Reading: Doorways Part I and Part II
To the One who has never made the choice to be born again...from spiritually dead to spiritually alive. Your nature is to do wrong like a donkey's nature is to plod. You can’t thunder like a horse – or win that gold cup without a change of nature. 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
In this aspect, you have a choice: Jesus or Satan.
I like the illustration from an Atheist who had a dream: In his sleep he saw a field with people all in it and a fence that ran through the middle. And everyone one was on one side of that line or the other. To the right, he saw everyone who had chosen Jesus. To the left, on the other side of the fence was everyone who had not chosen Jesus but rather followed Satan. The atheist stood looking back and forth, undecided who he would follow so he jumped up on the fence in between. Then all the people in the field disappeared. No one was left. And the devil returns and says to the man “There you are! I was looking for you.” The man screams, “Hey I didn’t choose Jesus and I definitely didn’t choose you!” The devil said “Sure you did. The fence is mine.”
The fence is mine.... The man who dreamed that dream woke up and made a decision for Jesus, because no choice is by default a choice to remain in Satan's field and thereby follow him to hell.
Jesus found you in that field and died to give you a choice. You can only make that decision while you are alive, because once you die, you have passed the point of no return; your choice eternally sealed one way or other. Make it now:
Romans 10:9-10 "If you (make that choice to) confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
(NKJ)
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