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Day 5: John 5/Psalm 14
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Sunday February 29, 2004
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You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them
you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about
me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
John 5:39-40 (New International Version)
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Jesus as
Lord of All Things
John 5 begins with the
story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man who had spent thirty-eight years
lying by the pool of Bethesda. The pool was believed to heal those who
would enter it when the water was stirred or agitated by an angel of
the Lord, and this unfortunate man had been waiting for someone to help
him into it so that its moving waters might heal him. Imagine his
surprise when Jesus, a man about whom he knows nothing, tells him to
“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” Such a command must have seemed
haughty, irrational and even mean-spirited. However, the man immediately
feels the healing over his body, picks up his mat and walks away.
In this chapter
John shares with us the absolute transcendence of Jesus’
Lordship. Jesus needs not wait for the water to be stirred; he heals at
his command. Jesus doesn’t wait until the Sabbath has passed to do his
work; he rises above the Mosaic law. Jesus does not challenge John the
Baptist, whom many believed to be the messiah, but rather allows John
to prepare the way for his coming. Jesus even transcends the scriptures
themselves, as he declares that the sacred writings were meant to tell
the story of his own coming. In John 5, Jesus is not bound by
tradition, by superstition or by religion; rather, he recognizes and
demonstrates his Lordship of all things.
What do you believe
Jesus is capable of doing in your life? In your family? In your
community? Are you, like the paralyzed man at Bethesda, waiting on
something outside of God to heal you? Jesus is Lord of all things,
even those things that you are most afraid of and most plagued by, and
the amazing part is that he wants to heal you.
Today’s
prayer:
Jesus, help me to see you as Lord of all things in my life, and to
let myself be healed by you. Please help me to give over to you that
which I hold onto the tightest, so that I can be made whole by your
all-powerful hand.
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Memory Verse of the Week:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16 (New International Version)
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For a complete
listing of all the previous devotionals in this "50 Day
Experience," click here.
To read the chapter or psalm of the day online, click on one of the
following links:
o
John
5
o
Psalm
14
Justin Masterson, masterson@cincyvineyard.com,
Video Coordinator at VCC
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