Do You Want to Be?

Have you ever thought about why Jesus asked the man at the pool of Bethesda, "Do you want to be healed?" before he actually healed him? I know that this is not something that I really honed in on until recently. Now, this one story gives us many lessons, but I am going to only discuss one side of it that I see. Although I think there are many reasons why people are not healed, I think this scripture covers both agreement and power of the tongue. Let's discuss.

In this passage, Jesus is posing the question to this man in order to first verify if the man will stand in agreement with being healed, or in agreement with the sickness. This man had been sick for 38 years, and although the bible does not tell us if that has been his entire life, I think it is safe to say, that after 38 years of having something wrong with you, it would be very easy to believe that you would be that way forever. But what happens when someone who has been sick this long gets healed? Change happens. Who you were yesterday, is not who you would be the next day. What if that man was scared of what that type of change would require from him?

We see the man come up with an immediate excuse as to why he cannot be healed, which makes me believe that he has come into agreement with the sickness and aligned himself with being that way forever. However, we also hear him express his belief that reaching the water could lead to his healing, and when Jesus instructs him to stand up and leave, he complies. The man had to immediately make a choice, will I agree with the current reality of my situation, or will I agree with the healing that Jesus says can be mine? And what happens if I get healed? What will be required of me? What will I have to do that I could not do before? We have all had to make a decision on who or what we agree with at some point or another, and some of those times are split second decisions. Do I agree with what the doctor's say and label me with, or do I agree that by the stripes Jesus took on his back, I can be healed? It seems like an easy decision, but sometimes what comes out of our mouths, does not agree with what the word of God says. Which leads directly into the second part, the power of the tongue.

I have been raised in church my whole life, and I have watched many people who are sick or battling with something and get regular prayer, and nothing changes. I have thought about why that is many times over the years. There are several reasons that this could be, one of them being the power of the tongue. When Jesus posed the man this question, he was also seeing what fruit would come out of the man's mouth. And we know that he tells the man to sin no more, which is also a reason some people do not get healed, but that is for another time. How many times have you seen a church member who is sick, walking around the church telling everyone about all of their ailments? When people continue to agree verbally with the label or diagnosis, they are coming into alignment with it, whether they know it or not. You cannot be aligned with both the issue and the word if they contradict each other. You have to make a choice, daily, until the situation looks different. The bible tells us the power of life and death is in the tongue, and yet I have watched many people give sickness, depression, anxiety, poverty and many other things the power in their life. If the church could get ahold of their tongues, the world would look so different. And that is the hill that I will die on.

I cannot continue to watch the church be sick and bound by the damage they do with their own tongue. It is time we tame our tongues and stop giving the enemy a foothold into our situations. As my dad would say, the church should be the quietest people on Earth. If your tongue cannot give life, and agree with the word, keep your mouth shut until it can.

Lord, please help us, me especially, to get control of the words that we speak not only about others, but about ourselves as well. The bible tells us we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and anything that comes out of our mouths that disagrees with that, is in direct opposition to who you say we are. Please help us, your church, speak life into your body, to those who are unsaved, and to the entire world. Amen.