Are you trying?

John 5:5-6
One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When 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?”

What are you going to do? Are you just going to lie there and hope that someone will come and help you? You are so lazy. Don’t you have any drive? Don’t you have any will? Don’t you have any desire to get better? If I were you and had been laying there for 38 years I certainly would have figured out a way to slither over and flop myself into that pool in order to get my healing!

These are the common questions and statements made when this scripture is read and taught. He didn’t want healing bad enough. He wasn’t willing to do the work required of him in order to get his healing. He didn’t have the heart to do what needed to be done. All of these are worldly interpretations of what the Bible is telling us.

The fact of the matter is that this man desired beyond our wildest dreams to get into the pool and be made well. He wanted nothing more than to flop into that water when the angel came and receive his deliverance, but he just couldn’t do it. This man wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t unwilling to do the work required; he was simply unable. Yet in church we teach that he should have wriggled his way into the pool. We have preachers that boast how they would have been able to devise a way to flop around in order to get in that pool. They teach a message of “you should have” from a scripture that clearly states you couldn’t.

If we just look further, beyond our own religious agendas, and read the actual text, we can clearly see that this man tells Jesus his desire is to get in the pool, but that on his own he is unable to do it. He says how no one would help him and that year after year he tries with no success. So Jesus does for him what he couldn’t do for himself. Jesus does what no other person was willing to do for him. Jesus says, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” Where no one else was willing, the Lord Jesus Christ was. Where this man’s own desire to make himself well was unable to accomplish the mission, Jesus Christ was.

Friends, we live in a world that constantly tries to twist and manipulate the scripture back into a religious doctrine of “do to get” when the truth of the Word is that Jesus “did” so that we “do get”! The message that Christ brought was that He was going to do it all for us because we simply aren’t capable (no matter how much we desire to be) of achieving righteousness apart from Him. So whether you have been trying for 1 year, 38 years, or an entire lifetime, it’s time to realize that you can’t do it through your own strength. If you’ve tried to quit smoking, drinking, or drugs and failed, realize that Jesus has already done the work for you. If you’re tired of trying to become a better father, spouse, friend, or coworker, realize that Jesus has already done the work for you.

Jesus came to the man by the pool, asked him if he wanted to be healed, and then healed him. How gracious of Him that He didn’t expect the paralyzed man to come to Him! Jesus has come to you too. (Revelation 3:20) He knows your sin, your vice, your struggles; He is simply asking, “Do you want to get well?” There are no strings attached. There is no work involved. No sacrificial offering, no bead-holding prayer, no hoop to jump through. It’s simply a matter of saying “YES!”