Jesus Commands The Impossible

  

John 5:1-18.

It’s a powerful story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man.

The man was too feeble to get into the healing water at the pool of Bethesda.
And Jesus asks him, “Would you like to get well?” (verse 6)

“I can’t, sir”, was the sick man’s response. “For I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up.” (verse 7)

And Jesus’ words are arousing and commanding of the one who had long suffered from inactivity and lethargy.

Jesus comes to the one too weak to make it to Jesus.
And His words strike to our core to hear them, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk.” (verse 8)

Wait.
What?
I thought this man was paralyzed.
I thought he couldn’t do so for himself?

We may have been tempted to think Jesus would have healed him there.

But not is the case for this miracle.

This one was going to demand participation in the process.

Jesus was commanding the impossible, because competency was given in the miracle.
Ability to do the impossible WAS the miracle.

I was talking to someone just the other day going through something that seems insurmountable. While it’s not strikingly devastating, it has posed as an impossible assignment that is going to require more faith than she feels she has at the moment.

And in my gentle and loving, yet honest and straightforward response, I shared with her about tests of faith. Those challenges that come ever before us to evaluate our faith and approve our devotion.

Because sometimes God chooses to initiate restorative solutions without persuasion.
And sometimes He invites us in to the process that seems at the onset, impossible.

And in it - the impossible assignment - is His favor.
He welcomes us to co-labor with Him.
And it is a gift far beyond our ability to conceive.

Peter considered the suffering (trial) a gift, “Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in His suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing His glory when it is revealed to all the world.”

Jesus commands the impossible from those who are His.
While yes, He will happily meet you right where you are, He is NOT content to leave you there.
And that… is the character of a glorious Savior!