Have you ever wondered what life would be like without your sight? Or without the ability to speak? Could you imagine not being able to walk or not being able to hear? Every day we either see, or at least hear about, someone having some infirmity of this kind. We have all come to think of the blind, the deaf and the cripple as a normal fact of life. Often these conditions come about through accidents and sometimes because of another's actions. Occasionally a person is born into their condition whether it is blindness or a palsied limb. Today in our society we call these birth defects. Children are called "slow" or diagnosed with "Attention Deficit Disorder", and possibly "retarded" Jesus disciples asked him the reason a certain man was born blind. Did his parent's sin and that cause the blindness. Our Lord said no, the man was born blind so the power of God could be displayed. Jesus then healed that man of his blindness and, before the Sandhedrin, the man's parents testified that yes he had been born blind. This was a miracle! The power of God. Jesus did many such healing miracles, multitudes came to him and He made them all whole. In the Bible, in the Gospel of John, we read of one of the miracles of Jesus:

Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the Sabbath. John 5:2-10

editors note: [the NIV omits the 'waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.] NIV also changes 'made whole' to 'get well'

The first thing we see in this story is that the man had an infirmity, he had something wrong with him that made him unable to walk. The exact dysfunction is not revealed to us, only the fact that this man had a problem and needed healing. Could you imagine having a broken leg, somehow getting to the hospital and just as you were about to see the doctor someone with a broken finger walks past you, beating you to the doctor, then the doctor says that's all he'll see today? How long would you wait to see this doctor? Of course today we would just go to different hospital, right? What if there wasn't one? What if the only doctor to be found just fixed up the other guy with the broken finger? Imagine tomorrow coming and just as the hospital opens someone with a cut arm walks past you and the doctor once again says that's all he'll see for the day. How long did that guy lay on his bed by that pool and watch others go to the pool and be healed? He had his infirmity for thirty-eight years and the Bible says that our Lord knew he had been there for a long time. Imagine the desperation, the frustration and the despair this man felt. In this story we also learn that this man had faith in the healing power of God. Verse four says that an angel went down into the pool. We know that an angel is a messenger of God. Everyone who had witnessed the healing going on at this pool knew it was the power of the Almighty God. This man's faith was total; if he could only get to the pool first, he would be healed by God. Jesus asked him, "Wilt thou be made whole?", and the man responded by giving the only reason he wasn't already whole. He needed help getting into the pool, to the healing he knew he would receive from God. I believe our Lord saw this man's faith, saw into his heart and knew that this man truly believed in the power of God. Jesus gave this man the help he needed, he did not hesitate, he did not lecture the man on how to get to the pool faster, Jesus totally healed him with a simple command. vs eight "Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk."

Vs nine lets us know that when we are dealing with God there is no "possiblies" or "maybe's" or "take-two-of-these-and-call-me-in-the-morning." The word of God tells us vs nine And immediately the man was made whole, . . .Not an hour later, but immediately! And this man wasn't just patched up and on the mend, he was made whole, Jesus completely healed him. Now personally I have never seen anything like this in my life. I have never had a loved one or a friend or an acquaintance that has had a experience such as this. Through reading the Bible, which I believe to be the inspired word of God, I know that physical healing is within the realm of reality. Our Lord and savior healed the sick, made the blind see and the deaf to hear and even raised people from the dead, all done by the power of God and to the glory of God. Also in Acts, in chapter three we read that Peter healed in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which to this writer is God. I know that physical healing in the name of God and done to give glory and honor to the Everlasting Creator is real. However, this is something that is beyond my personal experience and of which I am virtually unlearned about. Therefore I will turn this writing to a subject of being made whole that I have experienced and witnessed in others.

It is a common fact to me and most likely to many reading this that mankind as a whole has some serious problems. Watch the news, read the newspaper or just visit the nearest shopping mall and you will see that humanity is certainly "not all there." A husband shoots his wife of seventy years and tries to shoot himself, a mother kills her children in a bathtub, eleven and twelve year old boys kill their father, teenagers, nearly armed for war, kill and maim their classmates. Grown men stalk and kill children, leaders use biological weapons on their own people. the list of atrocities done by mankind each day is endless. Romans 3:23 reads." For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." And 3:10, "there is none righteous, no, not one" Please read on to vs eighteen. The Bible makes it very clear why mankind is the way we know it to be. There should be no question as to why we see the violence and depravity we see in mankind. The reason is sin. Separation from God.

At this time I would like to let you know that in no way am I attempting to point out the way the world is without including myself in the picture. I am not holier-than-thou and in fact at one time in my life I believed myself to be near the top of the list of "bad people". You see, at the age of nineteen I took another persons life during an armed robbery. I believed that robbing a bank was something I could do in order to pay for my party-til-dawn lifestyle. At the age of twenty I was sentenced to life in prison and I am now serving that sentence. In my brief nineteen years in society I had broken all Ten Commandments, most of them on a daily basis, not to mention the laws put forth by our government. I am not proud of this, it is a fact of my life I cannot change and I cannot hide from. The depths that a man will allow himself to sink to l know and the heights a man can soar to on eagles' wings I know also. Which brings me to the topic of being made whole in spirit. Man is flesh and man is spirit. The flesh is the part we can detect with the five senses. The spirit is the part we all felt when the twin towers collapsed. The apostle Paul spoke of the dual nature of man saying that the carnally minded man is dead while the spiritually minded mans is alive. Our Lord Jesus made it clear that there is flesh and there is spirit.

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: John 4:23

It is clear to me that man, while flesh, is a spiritual being. I believe Jesus taught this idea as well as the apostle Paul. It is also clear to me that for the first twenty-six years of my life I was in fact spiritually dead. I was alive in the flesh, yet my spirit was dead because I rejected God. Now if in spirit I rejected God's truth then the only other course was to follow the flesh, which I believed to be the only reality. Living for the flesh is a spiritual infirmity. As Paul said, to be carnally minded is death. Spiritually crippled?

Remember the man by the pool called Bethesda? He was as good as dead lying there day after day. Do you suppose he had much joy in life being crippled as he was? There are literally billions of people today that, spiritually, are worse off that the man by the pool in Bethesda. He knew of God's power and had hope of being the recipient of that power one-day. Billions of people are spiritually crippled, most of them trying to find a cure for their malady in the flesh, not even aware that it is their spirit that is hurting. Some don't even know they're crippled. Only one thing can help them, it helped me become a child of God rather than a murderer. That help is the power of God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Good Shepherd, the Wonderful Counselor. If you do not know God, if you do not call upon Jesus Christ as your savior, if you believe you can be okay on your own then you know the feeling of not being able to reach the pool. The Lord is standing before you with pure love and mercy and He's asking you . . .