Jesus Says Stop Sinning
By John Earp
John 5:1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda a and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” 7“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” 8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” 11But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” 12So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” 13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. 14 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.” NIV
Several things are revealed in the above passage of inspired Scripture. One is that Jesus has the power to heal our bodies. Another is how the religious leaders of the day were offended that a man was healed on the Sabbath Day, and in their minds, this work, miraculous as it obviously was, was nevertheless a violation of the Sabbath. Their attitude really stank. Instead of praising God for doing such a phenomenal miracle right in front of them, they chose to criticize on a technicality, ignoring the fact that the almighty God works every single day.
What a wonderful thing it is to know Jesus as Healer. And He does still have all the power required to heal the sick today, for as Hebrews 13:8 tells us, “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.”
An even more wonderful thing to consider is what Jesus told the man he had healed afterwards: “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” Contrary to the many religionists of our day who wish to insist that stopping sinning while still in a mortal body is impossible, no matter how much the HOLY Spirit dwells within and empowers you to resist temptation and live holy, the Bible is abundantly clear that the genuine Christian life is one in which sin is the EXCEPTION, not the rule, and that what God commands us to do is by definition possible, His almighty Spirit helping us all along the way. The inspired Apostle John says in his first episode, chapter 3 verse 6, that “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.” Read it and weep, child of God.