May 7

John 5:1-23       New English Translation (NET)        

Healing a Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda

5 After this there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ² Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool called Bethzatha in Aramaic, which has five covered walkways. ³ A great number of sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed people were lying in these walkways. ⁵ Now a man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and when he realized that the man had been disabled a long time already, he said to him, “Do you want to become well?” ⁷ The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get into the water, someone else goes down there before me.” ⁸ Jesus said to him, “Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ Immediately the man was healed, and he picked up his mat and started walking. (Now that day was a Sabbath.)

¹⁰ So the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and you are not permitted to carry your mat.” ¹¹ But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” ¹² They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” ¹³ But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped out, since there was a crowd in that place.

¹⁴ After this Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “Look, you have become well. Don’t sin any more, lest anything worse happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went away and informed the Jewish leaders that Jesus was the one who had made him well.

Responding to Jewish Leaders

¹⁶ Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began persecuting him. ¹⁷ So he told them, “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.” ¹⁸ For this reason the Jewish leaders were trying even harder to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father, thus making himself equal with God.

¹⁹ So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does, and will show him greater deeds than these, so that you will be amazed. ²¹ For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. ²² Furthermore, the Father does not judge anyone, but has assigned all judgment to the Son, ²³ so that all people will honor the Son just as they honor the Father. The one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

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questions to ponder:

Am I willing to step outside of the cultural or religious norms to obey what the Lord desires for me?

 

Have I left myself open to the world, so that sin in my life may have..or could in the future, cause me hardship?

 

Do I revere the Son of God, knowing all that the Father has placed in his Hands?

 

Help me Lord God, to understand enough of who You are, so that I can see the amazing future you have planned for me........that I may experience who you are in my life...that I may understand that the Lord Jesus Christ holds judgement in His Hands! Amen!