"Behold, Thou Art Made Whole"

You do have to admit that our friend here with his bed, was not the sharpest tool in the shed. But in all seriousness, Jesus said something to him, which we must consider for ourselves, and the walk we have in 'New Life'. In verse 14, it says: "Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee." This word 'sin' is an interesting thing, for it really means 'to miss the mark on the way'. It comes from the Greek word 'hamartano', and basically means: To err, swerve from the truth, go wrong. In the same line of thought, a 'sinner', which comes from the word 'hamartolos', means: One who keeps missing the mark in his relationship with God. In the context of what we are dealing with, we will look at the opposite meaning of this word, which is 'sophos', meaning 'wise', or 'one who knows how to regulate his relationship with God'. This is something which we must be able to do, yet it is something which we often fail to do. For instance; the hardest thing to do in the midst of a fight with either our spouse, or a brother or sister, is to swallow our pride and pray; yet it is the thing which we must do. This failure to yield in the heat of a battle, is just one indication of our ability to get swept away by our own flesh; yet for the most part, many of us will come back to our senses and correct the damage done. However, this same 'sinful' power that is demonstrated in the example above, is also the equivalent to what takes us down a path that leads us away from the Lord. It is our inability to regulate our relationship with God! Say, what does that mean? Okay, I just had a good experience to help me explain this: on my recent RV trip, my torque converter went out, and driving home was quite the challenge. I had to keep my foot on the pedal in a very certain position to keep the RPMs between 2000 & 2500; if I failed to do that, and my RPMs went over 2500, then I lost power. When I saw that I was approaching a hill, I would prepare myself to regulate the gas pedal as to not cause the RPMs to jump up; but instead, I would cause a gradual increase in power, by first decreasing the power ever so slightly. Say what? Listen! We must stay vigilant, ready to pray, and willing to surrender; or else we are going to fail, or 'miss the mark'. There is actually a predetermined decision that must be made to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done. I had the ability to govern the RPMs in the RV, I just needed to figure out how to make the engine to respond; or maybe it was the other way around, and the engine had to teach me how to respond with the gas pedal. Either way, it's still the same choices that must be made before you need to actually start up that hill; in other words, before we actually get into a situation in which we need to do something extra ordinary, we must be prepared to do them, and know what we must do! One thing that never fails, is to pray: Pray going in, while your in, and after your out!!! God has equipped us with every tool that we need to regulate our relationship with Him! "According as His Divine Power hath given us all things that pertain into 'Life' and 'Godliness', through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to 'Glory' and to 'Virtue':" (2 Peter 1:3) You know the rest!