November 27
God in Our Midst
Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned: he has crossed over from death to life.
<>John 5:24, niv
Every reject in the city must have gathered at the pool of Bethesda, the “House of Mercy.” The emaciated bodies, the pale faces, the pain-deadened eyes, the hollow cheeks all gave silent witness to the helplessness and hopelessness of the diseased and disfigured and dying who lay, crumpled and sprawled, like discarded refuse on the terrace that led to the water’s edge. As the eyes of God scanned the mass of misery, He saw “a great number of disabled people . . . the blind, the lame, the paralyzed,” (John 5:3, niv). Each pitiful sufferer focused all attention on the water’s surface, desperately pinning his or her hope on being the first to spot the bubbling movement and the first to react by jumping—or falling—into the pool. Each was totally preoccupied with his or her own disability—blindness or lameness or paralysis.
The multitude of the miserable were all focused on the pool, on the water, on the place, on a traditional source of help, even as God Himself stood in their midst! Where is your focus?
Just Give Me Jesus
©2004 Anne Graham Lotz. All rights reserved.
