Question: “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6)
Healing is holy. Are you ready to be healed?
Jesus looked at a man who’d been stuck for 38 years and asked: “Do you want to be made well?”
It’s a soul check.
This Sunday, we continue our summer series Answer Me This with a question that challenges every place in us that resists change…even the good kind.
This Week’s Study Guide
Scripture: John 5:1–9
(Contrast what Jesus says and what the man doesn’t say.)
1 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people. 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 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?” 7 The ill 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.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Now that day was a Sabbath.
Reflection:
Jesus asks a man who’s been sick for 38 years if he wants to be healed.
And the man starts with explainations. Blames. Deflects.
Sometimes, we do too. Jesus cuts through the story to ask: Are you ready for something new?
Questions for Reflection or Small Group:
- What in your life needs healing, but hasn’t changed?
- What fears or patterns might be holding you back from getting well?
- What would healing actually look like in this area of your life?
Spiritual Practice for the Weekend:
Each day between now and Sunday, pray:
“God, help me want what will make me whole.”
Just once a day. See what begins to shift.