“Jesus, seeing him being sick and knowing that he had much time already, He said to him; ‘Do you wish to become whole?’” (John 5:6).
To be whole, in the context of Jesus’ words is to be like Him; sadly, so many are content to remain in the condition in which He finds them; they don’t want to be like Him, to be healed and transformed and made whole; they just want to be forgiven.
For such as these the opening words of the old hymn; “take my life and let it be…..” are all that is sought; there is no real desire that the next words, “consecrated Lord to Thee” are to be taken seriously by the Lord.
Christians seek the blessings but they suffer from chronic discouragement caused by unbelief. Jesus had no greater power when He walked this earth than He has now; why then, can it not be seen in Christianity?
The problem is that too many Christians are living in the “now” – the eyes are upon the things that can be seen, the temporal things, Paul called them, rather than the things of eternal value. The things we treasure are earthly, rather than heavenly, and are being stored up in this life, rather than in heaven.
This is the fundamental flaw in human nature, to glory in the things of this world; Satan attempted to deceive Jesus by offering Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. In so doing, Satan was seeking to take advantage of a weakness in the human race that he planted there; “the lust of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh and the arrogant posturing of life” (1 John 2:16).
But Jesus was a man born of the Holy Spirit, who saw the world as it really is; He saw its decay, its filth and corruption; He knew that its glory was only to delude and seduce its foolish victims into unrighteousness and lawlessness.
Becoming whole is to come to a place where we can share that same worldview as the Lord of Glory.
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