An Important Reminder

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

John 5:14 (NIV)

I believe that at least once during your journey through the Bible, you have read the story of the man who spent nearly his entire life near the Pool of Bethesda, hoping that one day someone would help him descend into the water to find healing—only to be healed, in the end, by Jesus Himself. There are even churches today that bear this name, thereby suggesting that they offer spiritual healing to those who pass through their doors. But that is not the whole story—although many fail to look further to see what transpired afterward between this man and Jesus.

The man had paid no attention to the identity of the One who had healed him. He had not even taken the time to look at His face or ask Him for His name. All that mattered to him was finally being healed of his affliction. While, on the one hand, we cannot really blame him—since verse 13 reveals that immediately after the healing, Jesus had slipped away into the crowd—on the other hand, we can look to Jesus' habit of asking people what they expected of Him to understand that a conversation had indeed taken place between them. However, Jesus had not yet finished His work in this man's life. He likely withdrew from his presence to avoid the religious leaders, knowing that they would seize the opportunity to hinder Him and bring accusations against Him, as they always did.

The most important part of the story is this: Jesus later encountered the healed man and said to him, "Sin no more, lest something worse happen to you." There is a crucial element to note here: his illness was the consequence of a sin he had committed at some point in his life. Nevertheless, this did not prevent God from extending His grace to him and lifting the consequences of that sin. Yet, Jesus reminded him of it nonetheless. He did so because it was a fundamental issue that needed to be addressed in this man's life. God healed him physically and spiritually, but the man, for his part, had to cease living in sin. Know that your sins will always have consequences, but God will always find a way to set you free and remind you that you must turn entirely to Him to find physical and spiritual healing.

May God's grace and peace be with you.