| “These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” |
| —John 5:39-40 |
Neither a child spitting out his or her medicine, nor an old man refusing “any more pills,” do themselves any favors when it comes to their healing. When a remedy exists, it is wise to take advantage of it.
Even in Jesus’ time, He met people who didn’t appear to really want a remedy for their woes. In John 5:1-15, we read the story of Jesus meeting a man at the Pool of Bethesda who had been unable to walk for 38 years. The man was full of excuses why he had not been healed in all that time, even when a common remedy was available. Jesus asked him, “Do you want to get well?” To prove the man’s faith, Jesus told him to stand and walk. At once, through God’s power, the man stood and walked.
Many people, in the death grip of sin, have heard the “cure” for their lost condition. But, they have refused the remedy that Jesus offers to them. The remedy comes through the simple, yet difficult, submission to the truth of the Gospel: confession of sin, repentance (turning from sin), and acknowledging that God has graciously given them the free gift, through Christ’s death for them on the cross, as the payment they could never make for themselves to a righteous God.
If your conscience has burdened you because of your refusal of the “cure” for your condition, recognize this voice as Jesus stepping up to you, as He did to this man at Bethesda and saying: “Do you want to get well?” Then, when He says to you: “Get up, walk with me, and accept my healing!” you will experience your cleansing from sin and peace with God—in effect, a new life. Then, you too will have learned that when a remedy exists, it is wise to take advantage of it.
