WEDNESDAY, June 4th, 2008

Tonight is youth group! Make sure you are there. We need to have AT LEAST 40 people, but lets try for 50, so call up some friends and bring them with you!

A Few Thoughts From Yesterday:
McCue: I am so glad that you got that cool phone that you can do your devotions with!! Awesome!
Jeff: Great job on the devos! VERY THOROUGH!
Jonathan: Very good job, but... what is up with saying: Hey my sons dying (lol)? what is funny about that? You are crazy!
Lucy: Hey Homie! Are you coming tonight? :)
Ryuzaki: That is the best part of the pit! It is so cool to get your adrenaline going as you run back and forth between the gong, the cymbals, both CRASH and suspended, and many other little gadgets! I think you will enjoy it more than you think!
Jessica: So you are getting that car? AWESOME! Congratulatoins!

John 5:1-15
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches.
3 In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water.
4 For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.
5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”
7 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.”
8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”
9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath.
10 The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.”
11 He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’”
12 Then they asked him, “Who is the Man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?”
13 But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place.
14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.”
15 The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

This story seems very humorous: There is this pool of water that supposedly heals people when they walk into it, but it only heals one person, and only whenever an angel comes and stirs the water.
So imagine the scene here: there are lame people, blind people, cripple people, deaf people, and many other people with their own need for healing. They are all lounging around this pool waiting... ... waiting for the water to move, so that the deaf people can very quietly try to sneak past the blind people, who are feeling all around trying to guess which direction the pool is. The blind people are tripping over the cripple people and some guy with leprosy is sitting there watching it all. Can you imagine the picture here? I think it would be such an icredible picture of so many people, living an absolutely HORRIBLE life waiting to be healed.

The irony comes in when you add in the fact that these people thought that water would save them, when their creator and healer was standing there right beside them.

This reminds me of our world today. There are so many people living horrible lives, they are miserable, living in there sin, living with their problems, many of them not even wanting to live anymore.

These people are trying to find healing in the things of this world: money, toys, sports, bars, and much more, but the only true source of healing that can be found is though Jesus Christ.

As you walk through the halls at school, or the mall, or through your neighborhood, try to see lost people just like these lame, cripple, deaf, and blind people at the pool of Bethesda SEARCHING for healing!! And we know the answer, the healer, that will give them life and life more abundant! Jesus Christ!