Daily devotion – Monday 28th June 2021
John 5: 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.
Leaving the Temple Mount, we walk to just near the Sheep Gate and the Pool of Bethesda.
It was here that Jesus, as the Scriptures record, healed a man who had been unable to crippled for 38 years. We view the steep steps leading down to the pool to where the water would have been at the time of John’s recording of this event.
I am always amazed at John’s description of the vast crowd lying around this pool, yet Jesus spoke to only one man concerning his healing. Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be healed!
The sad fact is that people refused God’s touch and His forgiveness then and today. Why they would do this is confusing.
But for you and me today, we should be welcoming every blessing that Christ wants to bestow upon us and not pontificate about anything else. Sometimes, people can get bogged down in the incidentals and miss the main issue: our relationship with Jesus Christ. Do we have one, and are we living in awe and holy reverence of Him.
With this in mind, Paul would remind us that we are to be thankful every day for the blessings of Christ.
When was the last time your prayer time excluded asking God for something and was instead completely filled with praise and worship for who He is?
After our time at the location of the Pool of Bethesda, and just a short walk away, we always visit the Church of St Anne’s built adjacent to the Sheep Gate and the Pool of Bethesda.
Our CCSH tour group, due to the exquisite acoustics in St Anne’s, always sings the hymn, “It is Well”, written by Horatio Spafford, at this beautiful little church.
The voices of praise, the beautiful words of the hymn and the impact of time spent at this site of Jesus miracle of healing create a touch of heaven each time we sing.
May you, this new week, exhibit a spirit of thanks and praise – we owe it to our Lord!