Rest is the first part of the word restore. In order to restore our lives, hearts and soul, we must find rest in God so that he may RESTore us.
“And we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
-John 4:42
The One who changes everything,
The One who brings life,
The One who brings hope,
The One who brings rest to our soul.
The Savior is the One that restores our lives into what he intended them to be. How many times do we walk burdened and heavy laiden with our sin, past regrets, hurts and pains and fail to walk in the freedom of Christ’s restoration in our lives?
I love the story of the healing at the pool in John 5. Verses 3-9 recounts the story: “Here a great number of disabled people used to lie – the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When 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?’ ‘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.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”
Jesus asked the man if he wanted to get well. Instead of answering with an emphatic YES!, he answered with excuses as to why he would never get well.
How many times do we want our lives to change but all we see are the surface reasons as to why we can’t. We don’t believe things will ever change. We no longer hope but see ourselves as victims.
Jesus didn’t even address his excuses but told him to get up, pick up his mat and walk.
We need to leave the excuses and victim mentality behind and realize that Jesus doesn’t want us to live a paralyzed life but one where we walk and move forward.
Interestingly in John 5:14, Jesus found this man again and said, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”
I wonder what Jesus was speaking about. He didn’t want the man to fall back into his old pattern of ways. He had given him another chance and didn’t want him to do the things in his past that had left him paralyzed.
What are the ways that you are paralyzed? What are your excuses to why it will never be different? Do you want to get well? If so, run to the Savior…the One that changes everything.
