Do You Have
A Story to Tell?
Good Morning Friends,
Let’s have a conversation with Jesus and imagine that we are sitting by the pool near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. We are lying down near the still waters of the pool where we have been for 38 years. This is our home, but it is also a place of mercy by name. Perhaps sheep for sacrifice were sold there, or brought in there at the Passover, perhaps the sheep used for sacrifice were washed in the sheep-pool. And here Jesus, the Shepherd, asks us to focus on what we really want. He asks what at first appears to be a very shallow question. But it is deeper than that. Jesus asks us to envision the future we hoped for even as he is envisioning what he wants for us. He always asks a question that pierces the very center of our heart and exposes our deepest motives. It is not a silly question after all. And yet at first we offer the most pathetic of excuses in response. Jesus ignores the blaming. The questions echo down through the ages. For the ill…Do we want to be healed? For those in addictions…Do we want to overcome? For the prisoner, do we want a job and a home? For those who do not know Him…Do we want to be saved? And then He asks us to take personal responsibility for that future…to do the impossible…to love and be loved…to do justice and walk humbly with the Lord. So get at it. You have a life to live. Do You Have
A Story to Tell?
Scripture: He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8 (NRSV)
Then the high priest Eliashib set to work with his fellow priests and rebuilt the Sheep Gate. They consecrated it and set up its doors; they consecrated it as far as the Tower of the Hundred and as far as the Tower of Hananel. And between the upper room of the corner and the Sheep Gate the goldsmiths and the merchants made repairs.
Nehemiah 3:1, 32 (NRSV)
After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.'” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.
But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God. Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.
John 5:1-19 (NRSV)
This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son.
1 John 5:6-9 (NRSV)
And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:17 (NRSV)
Message: Don’t keep giving the same old excuses. Stop blaming others. Sure the hurt is overwhelming and we are helpless in our struggle. Nevertheless get up and do the impossible…witness. If it glorifies God, Jesus might just lead you to a better place where you can give Him the credit for the change…the transformation that spills forth into the lives of others. Experience the healing power of Jesus and the continued healing that occurs when we each share our conversations with Jesus. Here God gave and gives witness to His Son through the Spirit, the water and the blood. Here a man who had seen the blood of 38 Passovers might witness the healing of the Messiah in his life so that he could tell the story to all those people who had been to his home on the steps near the fountain that flowed and stirred up the pool. Friends, you have heard God’s witness of the cleansing water of baptism, and then the testimony of the blood referring to the Cross. Now witness of the Spirit of God validating His Son in the Body of believers. Here God bears witness to the world through our life and witness to the love He has for us. Be healed as the Spirit bears witness to you.
Pray that we each have a story to tell and the courage to tell another person about this Jesus who has changed our lives. Pray we believe the witness we have been given and others believe the witness we have shared. Pray that we would overcome the struggles that bind us and keep us from being the person God can use mightily for His Kingdom purposes. Pray we turn from being survivors to overcomers. Pray we witness the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray the Spirit bears witness to each of us as we tell our story.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 