Weekly Memory Verse:
Jesus replied, "My Father is always working, and so am I." John 5:17 (NLT)
Meditation Thought:
Am I aware of how God is working around me?
Today's Reading - John 5:1-17 (NLT) Choose another translation
Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days.
Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people-- blind, lame, or paralyzed-- lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, "Would you like to get well?" "I can't, sir," the sick man said, "for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me." Jesus told him, "Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!"
Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, "You can't work on the Sabbath! The law doesn't allow you to carry that sleeping mat!" But he replied, "The man who healed me told me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" "Who said such a thing as that?" they demanded. The man didn't know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, "Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you." Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him. So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. But Jesus replied, "My Father is always working, and so am I."
(Today's reading came from the New Living Translation)
8 comments:
Sometimes I get jealous when it seems like others are experiencing God's power and presence and I'm missing it.
I get too narrow-focused and forget that God is working His bigger picture.
I'm praying for continued God-vision, His way of seeing and working things.
I wonder if instead of seeing God work around me I am guilty of looking at the negative side..."you can't work on the Sabbath." I am asking God to help me see the REAL happenings around me, the ones that really make a difference in life!
I feel the same way sometimes, jealous that others have God working visibly in their lives. Then I remember that God does work in my life, I just have to focus on God working, not always on why doesn't that happen to me.
I can't say anything about being jealous, or being negative but I can say that His power is REAL and ALIVE because I have seen the results of His work and that God uses His healing gifts for His glory. I know quite a few people who have been prayed with for healing and have been healed. Miraculous physical healings!
I have prayed for years that the Lord to listen to my prayers. But I can't say that I've ever asked Him to change His will for my benefit or the benefit of another. By doing that we won't be imitating Christ. Christ only wanted God's will. God wants us to be open to His purpose. He may choose you to heal the sick or to enable the blind to see. But He will call you when the time is in His will.
when I read this it just makes me happy and excited to know that God works outside of the box. Not just by the rules we've set up. I hope I never forget God is what's important and focus on the rules more than on Him.
God does all in his time not ours. My timing & his timing are rarely the same. I like most want things sooner then later, but God's timing is perfect to prove that it is through him we get what we need. I wish to be more sensitive to see him in action. I have been amazed by witnessing his miracles. I never want to be too used to witnessing him in action.
Sometimes we all forget that God made EVERTHING. He deserves alot of thanks, so I think we should obey his rules. What he wants us to do, we should do. Going to church is one way to help thank God, praying, and reading the Bible also are ways. We really need to repay him, and the reading today shows just how much God does for us.
It is so amazing to think that God is working all around us and we don't realize it most of the time. I wish that I could just remove the set of blinders that covers my eyes so I could see all of the wonders around me. God can do anything we just need to remember that sometimes.
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