Moulding

After this, Jesus found him in the temple complex and said to him, "See that you are well. Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn't happen to you." The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well." John 5:14,15

This man was the same man who Jesus found at the Sheep Gate. This man had been lying there for years trying to get into the pool called Bethesda to be made whole. Jesus told him to pick up his bed and walk and he did.

It is interesting that of all the people Jesus healed he would say to this man, 'do not sin anymore so that something worse doesn't happen to you.'

In life we are given opportunities and there are times we don't understand. These are times when God is shaping us, or endeavouring to. There comes a time when we must take a role in submitting to His hand, in fact saying, "Lord I will discipline myself and submit to Your ways."

If we think we can pursue all that is wrong and evil and not pay a price for it, then we are wrong. This man had a perpetual sin in his life that crippled him. I have seen people full of unforgiveness become crippled with bitterness.

We cannot live for ourselves and grasp, shove, yell and generally behave in a horrid way and expect the Lord to say, 'Well done'. He is more likely to say, 'Begone from Me you who practice lawlessness.' Lawlessness is the life given to self.

As with this man we see sin cripples but more sin creates a worse state, probably a horrible death. The man did not seem to hear what Jesus said as he went straight away to report to the Jews who healed him, his behaviour did not show a recognition for truth.

'I' has to be tamed, disciplined, controlled as it is a spoilt entity within us. Take charge of 'I' today. Amen!