A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.” John 5:5-9.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Your life is a letter written to Me, your letter can be in agreement with the plans I have already written in My scroll for your life before you were born, Psalm 139:16-18—the life of good deeds prepared in advance in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2:10—or a letter of disobedience and strife. Write My Words on the tablet of your heart and your letter will match up with Mine. The best part is for us to write your letter together as we walk out your destiny, for this life and for eternity.
Behold, I make all things new! Including you, so that your life becomes fruitful and full. In learning how to bring Heaven to touch he earth, where righteousness and peace kiss, we are looking at another miracle of Jesus, for you are to be doing the works He did and greater, and this is a miracle where a man whose life had been unfruitful for thirty-eight years became fruitful in one encounter with Jesus.
This miracle is only recounted in the gospel of John. It happened in Jerusalem very close to the Temple at a pool by the sheep gate, which is called Bethesda, having five porticoes. John 5:2. Remember that the number 5 is the number of the letter “hei,” the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which means grace. And the word “Bethesda” means “house (beth) of grace (hesed). Jesus came and grace came in when He came, He is filled with grace and truth. Of His fullness you have all received grace upon grace.
And I tell you that this miracle happened after the events in Jesus’ life preceding it, which took place in Samaria and Galilee, that there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
You translate these to be called “feasts” but in Hebrew, I called them as “appointed times,” “moadim.” They are being fulfilled one by one on the divine timeline of salvation and pressing towards the goal of joining My Kingdom with the earth. It will then truly be days of Heaven on earth for I will dwell among you in the Heavenly City of the New Jerusalem come down to earth from Heaven.
And three of these appointed times were pilgrimage feasts, all were required to come to celebrate them at the temple in Jerusalem, that is, in My house with Me.
“Three times a year you shall celebrate a feast to Me. You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover); for seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. And none shall appear before Me empty-handed. Also you shall observe the Feast of the Harvest (Pentecost) of the first fruits of your labors from what you sow in the field; also the Feast of the Ingathering (Tabernacles) at the end of the year when you gather in the fruit of your labors from the field. Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord (Adonai) LORD (Yahweh).” Exodus 23:14-17. Note that this passage is in the twenty-third chapter of Exodus for I will show you another passage from this same teaching to Moses in a moment.
When Jesus came there, in the five porticoes lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters. This was a feast (moad) so many had come to Jerusalem and they had brought their sick to be healed. Why did they go to the area called Bethesda with the pool by the sheep gate? Because I sent an angel into the pool to stir up the water at the times of these feasts (moadim) and whoever, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in first was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. John 5:1-4.
Why did this happen with My angel? I created the angels as ministers to serve those inheriting salvation, and the descendants of Abraham, because of the Covenant and My Word which they so zealously recorded and kept intact, heard, and obeyed qualified, but there is more, I had made them a promise when I brought My people out of the slavery of Egypt. Do you remember it? It also is in the book of Exodus in chapter 23, in the same teaching about the appointed pilgrimage feasts.
“Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him. But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them. You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their sacred pillars in pieces. But you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst. There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.” Exodus 23:20-26.
The same angel who brought them in was there to bring My blessing to their bread and their water and I would remove sickness from their midst and fulfill the number of their days.
Now I directed Jesus to a man lying there who had been ill and disabled for thirty-eight years. He was withered and unfruitful. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition (My Spirit gave Jesus a Word of Knowledge on this), Jesus said to him, “Do you wish to get well?” John 5:5-6. You may think this a strange question to ask someone who was placed there to get healed but it was not. Jesus never spoke idle words. I will show you why but first look at his answer to the question of Jesus. The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” John 5:7.
I made it clear to My people about receiving the benefits I promised by this angel that there were certain things they needed to do and in fact, I had explained this in detail how to do it, and these instructions are further recorded in the sixth and eleventh chapters, as well as in the twenty-eighth and thirtieth chapters, of Deuteronomy. But with respect to the benefits the angel would bring them, I had instructed, “Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him. But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.” Sickness and death are enemies. I call them that. And also, “You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their sacred pillars in pieces. But you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst. There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.” Exodus 23:20-26.
I tell you in My Word how to have healing, indeed, I am very clear about it. I tell you to give ATTENTION to My Words, keep them before your eyes, and in your hears, in your mouth, in your hearts, and then they are life to you and health, healing, and medicine to your flesh. Proverbs 4:20-27. I tell you that I sent My Word to heal you and deliver you from your destructions. Psalm 107:20. I tell you to meditate on My Word day and night and do it and you will make your way prosperous and successful. Joshua 1:7-8; Psalm 1. I tell you to be very diligent in hearing and keeping My Word, to guard it in your heart. I tell you that to live days of Heaven on earth that you shall “impress these words of Mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as days of Heaven upon the earth.” Deuteronomy 11:18-21. I tell you that My Words are Spirit and life and are Words of eternal life. I told the Israelites that My Words were not idle words but their very life.
My Kingdom is suffering violence and the violent take it by force. What force? The force of faith, and faith only comes by hearing and hearing My Word and it is only released by speaking it. The amount of return you get from My Word, from My promises, is the amount of diligence you put in hearing them, reading them, meditating on them, speaking them, and making them your priority over all other words and opinions.
Without faith, it is impossible to please Me. Why? Because you cannot receive your miracle. You cannot receive the flow of My power without the connector and conduit of faith. In Nazareth Jesus had the power to do so but He could work NO miracles there, though He desired to do so, because of their unbelief. They had no faith in My Word who stood before them. My people perish for lack of knowledge. And it is not because the knowledge is not there, it is because they have not valued My Word or exercised any diligence in seeking it and learning My ways.
This man was not seeking My Word, he never had, you know this because Jesus told him later in the temple to stop sinning so that the sickness or worse would not find entrance into his life again. If you are opening yourself to the devil, he will bring sickness to you, it is illegal but if you entertain it and do nothing to enforce your rights by My Word it will remain. You must apply the medicine of My Word.
This man did nothing but wait for someone else to wait on him and get healing for him. And it grieves Me but many of you who believe are the same. You beg Me to heal you and blame Me that you are still putting up with sickness, pain, lack, and disease but you do not seek My Word diligently and take it in and make it the ultimate decision maker in your life. Many of you are lazy when it comes to reading and meditating upon My Word, but you call it that you have no time and are too busy with the affairs of your day. And many are disobedient though they do not realize it by worrying and complaining and giving in to fear.
Jesus looked at the man with compassion and gave him a faith command. If the man did not argue but received the Word he would receive by faith. So Jesus spoke, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” John 5:8. The man did not argue, he did not say he could not or that the water had not moved. That Word gave Him the strength he needed without looking around for someone else to help him. “Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.” John 5:9.
You will notice, Jesus did not say a long prayer over this man. He told you to keep your prayers to the point and not say a multitude of meaningless words of repetition no matter how “religious” they sound. He spoke the result that I desired for the man. He sent out My Word to heal him and the man received it. I told the first man and woman to bear much fruit and take their dominion authority to rule over the works of My hands and the earth. And that was the beginning of it all.
Now it was the Sabbath on that day. So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.” John 5:10. They were policing My Word but they were losing the spirit of My Word, it had become a mere tradition of men with many rules and regulations I had never laid down. But the man had an answer for them, “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk’?” But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place. John 5:11-13. Jesus only sought My glory and not His own. But the man healed had recognized the genuine voice of authority of My Word without even knowing Jesus.
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” John 5:14-17.
First, I want you to notice where the man who was healed went after he was healed. He went to worship in the temple. He did not just return to the life he once knew and forget about Me. He came to honor Me and keep the feast in My temple. Thanksgiving is the best way to stay healed. But Jesus came and found him with an important message, He counseled him not to go back to his old life of sin or he would again open his life to the devil and the last state of the man would be worse than the first. Take this to heart. I love to heal but I want you to keep your healing for the devil will keep trying to put the sickness or lack on you again so that he can return to the place he lost. Keep My Words in you so that you will be filled with faith and the Holy Spirit and keep your door shut tight to the devil and his unclean spirits.
The man that was healed was so excited to find out who healed him that he ran to give testimony to the Jews of who healed him. However, it did not make them rejoice and seek Jesus for healing and life, it made them persecute Him for doing a healing on Shabbat. A day I had set aside for being with Me in My Word so that you would be healed and strong. So Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” John 5:17. I entered the rest (Shabbat) and I have never left it but I have not stopped working on your salvation. And the same should be true of you. “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12-13.
I love you. You see that there are many deep meanings in all Jesus said and did, we have not even gone below the surface, so keep pondering these things in your hearts and My Spirit will keep revealing new depths of My Word to you.
For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 1 Corinthians 2:10-13.