Get Up From That Pool .... Trust God

We trust processes, we trust people, we trust products, but we don't trust God.

We will get on an elevator every day, in faith, knowing that it will not get stuck or fall to our demise.

We will drive a car over a bridge every week trusting that it won't cave or crumble before our eyes.

We will go to the doctors every month and believe without fail that the medicine they give us works.

The bottom line: We trust in the creation and not the Creator. We trust in things and technology but not the one who is all-knowing.

Earlier this month, at the Body of Christ, Inc., Chief Apostle H.C. Gunn taught us a new way to see the scripture about the man who was at the pool for 38 years waiting for someone to help him in the waters as the angels came down and troubled them so that he could be healed.

He trusted that getting in those waters at the right time would make a difference. He trusted that he needed someone else to bring him to the waters. He trusted that the healing that came once his feet got wet would last, that it wasn't a gimmick but the real thing. He trusted that even if he had to wait 38 years, he would one day get his blessing. But what if he waited too long? What if he didn't have to depend on friends to carry him to the place of healing? What if he was taught wrong? What if he was depending on the wrong person or thing for his deliverance?

Somewhere in our lives, we are hoping and trusting in the wrong person or thing. We are sitting on the sidelines waiting for something or someone to activate our faith when the seed of faith is already in us.

John 5

3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.

4 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.

5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.

6 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?

7 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.

8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.

9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.

Chief Apostle Gunn taught us that the man's waiting at the pool for 38 years was an error. No one taught him that he could call on the Lord and he could pray and receive his healing.

We have become good at passing down these religious sayings like "trust the process" or "keep pressing for your blessings," but we fail to teach the living Word.

What would have happened if someone taught him Exodus 15:26: "If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you" or (2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV) "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

Have you been taught to sit at the pool? What are you still waiting for? Are you one of those people that say I am going to give my life to God after I get this and this straight? I am going to start paying my tithes after I pay off this bill? I am going to try the doctors first and if that doesn't work I'll ask for prayer? The man at the pool didn't need to trust the tradition or process, or even wait for the angels. What his parents, his family, his friends, and the ministers of that time should have been teaching him was that God and Jesus are bigger and better than any wave in that pool. The Lord is more powerful than any process. Maybe if he was taught he would have used enough faith to get in that pool even when the waters weren't troubled or to lay where he was. and cry out to the Lord for help with sincerity.

If you notice: Jesus asked him if he was willing to be healed. And instead of just accepting what Jesus was offering the tradition he was taught led him to rattle off all the reasons why he couldn't be healed. All he needed was willingness. Willingness is the key to receiving what God has for you in his hands. Jesus spoke faith to the man even in his doubt, even in his lack of knowledge of the power in calling on his name. He took just a few moments to teach him what he should have been taught over the last 38 years of his life. Parents, we must change the way we are teaching our children. Do we want them to be stuck in a cycle for decades because we didn't teach them the Word and the truth and what it means to trust in the Lord.

But what about those of us who have been taught and we are still sitting at the pool knowing there is a better way but refusing to apply the Word, take the teaching, and use our faith. Later, Jesus would find the man in the temple and said to him "sin no more." Chief Apostle has taught us that oftentimes the sin we are stuck in or living in can bring about sickness, chaos, and all types of battles in our lives.

You may wonder how could a man who was so helpless have been living in sin? Well, we must remember that sin is not just done with the members of our body, but sin is done in the heart as well. What if the sin Jesus was referencing was the sin of unbelief? What if his sin was listening to the wrong thing or wrong people? What if his sin was a lack of prayer. The man was seeking to be made whole, but wholeness only comes from the one who made us and to receive from him we must believe in him. And believing in him is not just marveling at what he can do, but doing what he says every day. What if it wasn't the fact that he had "no man" to help him to the pool that was keeping him from being healed? What if it was a lack of repentance and unbelief that was really keeping him back?

If Jesus said "sin no more" that means it's possible that we can go without sin. We don't have to sin every day and every week? What about striving for perfection in Christ, striving to ensure sin is few and far between in our lives? The way to live without sin is to live by and with the Word. Chief Apostle Gunn has taught us that staying in the Word daily and making a choice to live by it is the way to ensure that sin has no place in our lives.

Well, that's all for now. We pray that your space at the pool will be empty by this time next week.

Be sure to check out our weekly radio broadcast to help you break free from the cycles of your life here.