Estimated reading time: 6 Minutes.

We continue with the base of the previous teaching…..

3) Sign – Identity who you are in Christ

We see a story where Jesus saw that the sick were gathered, and the first to be immersed in the waters was healed, but especially there was a man who had been sick and prostrate for 38 years. The healing of this paralyzed patient teaches us that God seeks the lost to save him, it is not that the lame man has come to look for Jesus; it is Jesus coming to where the need is. This man had suffered for a long time but Jesus came to heal him.

After being sick for a long time, a person loses the notion of what he could do before, it is not that he was born that way, but rather that being unable to perform or do what he used to do for so long leads to resignation to obtain healing. The signs are for people to believe in Jesus Christ, and in the healing Power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there are people who do not believe if they do not see and out of mercy to those people Jesus made many signs that God was really with him.

The paralytic of Bethesda (JOHN 5)

2 And there is in Jerusalem, near the sheep gate, a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay a multitude of sick people, blind, lame, and paralyzed, waiting for the movement of the water. 4 For an angel descended from time to time into the pool, and stirred up the water; and the one who first descended into the pool after the movement of the water, was healed of whatever disease he had. 5 And there was a man there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying down, and he knew that he had been like this for a long time, he said to him: Do you want to be healed? 7 Sir, answered the sick man, I have no one to put me in the pond when the water is stirred; and meanwhile I go, another descends before me. 8 Jesus said to him, Get up, take up your mat, and walk. 9 And immediately that man was healed, and took up his bed, and walked. And it was a Sabbath that day.

When we have been sick for a long time, our identity may have become involved in suffering, identity is lost and we get a victim role, and perhaps you are going through some trial and you believe that God is not with you. When Jesus comes, the perspective changes, and this man’s identity changes because the first thing he says to him is: “I can’t”, and Jesus is telling him if you can, if you trust God, when we trust God everything is possible.

If this applies to you my beloved, realize there is something more to the suffering you are going through, no matter what you are going through, Jesus gives you a new identity and a different purpose. That makes us wake up differently every day, it doesn’t matter if the day is gray or snowing, get up with gratitude because you have a new day ahead and a new opportunity to make a difference on this earth.
When Jesus healed the paralyzed man, he told him to “get up, take up your bed and walk.” At that moment Jesus declared his healing, gave him another identity and purpose, Jesus sought him out to heal him.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” This man did not know Jesus, and after being healed this man He is confronted by the authorities because he was carrying his stretcher on a Saturday (which was a Sabbath).
The Grace of God gives us freely, the response of the paralytic said: “I can’t”, not like in other cases that said: “I do want to be healed”, and after a while Jesus meets him again and tells him no sin more, and here is another important part; he cares about the physical and also the Spiritual.

Mission is to take the gospel everywhere and form disciples of Christ.

When the Lord met the Samaritan woman, Jesus gave her a new identity. She goes and tells everything that happened to her and this woman understood what the purpose of her restoration was, to share what God had done in his life with others. The Lord teaches us with this sign that we must testify to the things that God does in our lives.

When the Lord says that he is going to do something, he will do it. God has the power to do it no matter what we think, Jesus is unstoppable. Nothing can stop him, not even death could stop him.

There is an illustration that will help us understand this:
There is an ambassador, Jon James, he visits a nomadic nation and the Ambassador brings a slave with him named: “Samay”. When the nomads find out they ask him to free her or else she will die, Jon James gives Samay her freedom, but she refuses, then it is concluded that she has been a slave for long enough to understand what it means. means freedom.” In this story we can understand that a problem or illness for a long time can make us lose the notion of the Freedom that Jesus offers us.

The feeding of the five thousand reminds us that Jesus is the Bread of Life.
A child came and brought 5 loaves with two fish, and Jesus took the loaves and fish, blessed God, and commanded the disciples to distribute them to the crowd.

Although the people saw the signs that Jesus did, they asked for more and more signs in order to believe, but Jesus told them: “I am the Bread of Life.”

All our lives we are making transactions; I give something for something, and so it seems that we do with our relationships, I help you, but then when I need you you help me and we are like that in that system of behavior, always expecting something in return.

God tells you: “You don’t have to give me anything in return, you just have to believe in me”. He will give you the bread of life, by faith we have believed that he is the Son of God who came to die for us, by faith.
When we have Jesus in our hearts, we thank God every day and we must renew our Faith.
To receive salvation I have to accept that I am a sinner, and Jesus is the only one who can save our lives.
The sign of the feeding of the five thousand points to Jesus, He is the Bread of Life that came down from heaven.

Sincerely, Pastor Guillermo Ayala.

• John 5:1-21
• John 1:10
• John 3:16
• John 6:25-59