John 5:8-13 

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.’”

I’m going to interject just to point out that it appears that this man has a new master. He doesn’t make an excuse that he doesn’t know the law; he simply states that the man who healed me told me to do this… and I’m listening. 

“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.

You can go back and reread this a few times, but without making any presumptions I can’t help but simply read that the man didn’t recognize Jesus until Jesus came back and sought the man out and told him to stop sinning; at which point, the man ‘sees’ Jesus and runs and tells the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who healed him.

It also appears the man’s sin was not recognizing Jesus for Who He is, but rather recognizing Jesus as a random person. The healed man was still lost; ‘the man who healed me is my master, but I don’t know who He is.’ Jesus seemingly straightens out this situation. The man doesn’t argue or deny that he was sinning and goes and makes it right.

Now, I can presume that the man returned to some form of sin that he had struggled with prior and Jesus was rebuking him, but John doesn’t mention this. So without reading into it and making it about discernment, I’m left with the facts that John gave me and what John followed this story with: Jesus claiming to be the Son of God.

I have a new Master… and if I recognize Him for who He is I will have eternal life. John 5:24 Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life.”

So here is a very real question, if the Lord is my Master, what have I done today because my Master asked me? Please don’t weaken this question with, “What have I done today that I think is good?” If I don’t hear God, do I wait, or press on with ‘what I think’? 

I have a new Master. Lord teach me to submit to You in every breath. Instead of living a distracted life, teach me to trust you and know that you are enough in all things. I have no need to ponder and plan every step. 

God’s message through His Son Jesus: Abide in me. The Creator of the Universe with uphold you.

An excerpt from George MacDonald’s, ‘The Marqui’s Secret’, that illustrates the beauty of obedience.

“I consider him possessed of a kind of heavenly common sense. A thing not understood lies in his mind like a fretting foreign body. But there is a far more important factor concerned than this exceptional degree of insight. Understanding is the reward of obedience. Obedience is the key to every door. I am perplexed at the stupidity of the ordinary religious being. In the most practical of all matters he will talk and speculate and try to feel, but he will not set himself to do… From the first he has been trying to obey. Nor do I see why it should be strange that even a child should understand the things of God whence he came, what shall he understand?”

“How, then, is it that so few understand?”

“Because where they know, so few obey.”

Without reading the whole book the impact of this quote may be lost a bit, but the man’s ‘do’ is a life abiding in truth. It is about a man whose life is lived for one Master and one only – Our Heavenly Father – whose example was lived out perfectly in Our Lord Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit we can be made new through obedience. We can learn to walk with our new Master. No longer a slave to this world… freedom and life.

A few pics from our week at Storm Mountain. We are so thankful for this opportunity… a beautiful, simple time together focused on growing as a family, individually, and in faith. Thank you Lord for blessing us.