What Do You Need? by David Jeremiah

Wednesday, March 14 What Do You Need?     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?” John 5:6     We know why people stand in line at the post office. We know why the people in the dentist’s waiting room are there. In the first century, if you saw scores of people gathered around the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, you would know why they were there. They were there to be healed.

Recommended Reading: Acts 16:30-31

The pool called Bethesda was really twin pools in Jerusalem surrounded on four sides by porches and another porch dividing the two pools. The sick would gather on the porches and wait for a stirring of the waters—supposedly by an angel of heaven—entry into which might result in healing. So those on the porches were there for healing. Yet Jesus approached a man and asked what must have seemed like an obvious question: “Do you want to be made well?”    Much could be said of Jesus’ question, but it begs another question: Do we want to be made whole? Forgiven and delivered from sin? Saved for eternity? The God of miracles is waiting for our answer. He wants us to say what we need.    I never have any difficulty believing in miracles, since I experienced the miracle of a change in my own heart. Augustine