February Fight Club
Do you want to get well?
John 5:2-9
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Like this man, many of us have been paralyzed by fear, anxiety and/or depression for a long time. This has become our normal and it is valid to begin this journey by honestly asking “Do I want to be healed?”
If the answer is “yes” then I see 3 things in this passage that need to happen:
Get up. This is God’s miraculous work in our hearts and minds. Jesus died on the cross, defeating Satan, sin and death, and now offers us this freedom as well. It is only by God’s mercy that we are able to “get up” and get out from under these aspects of our sin nature that having been crushing us with their weight.
Take up your bed. This is our work. We are instructed to uproot or remove our bed which can represent our old life – our default settings – those familiar places of sickness and despair and then we are to…
Walk. It was for freedom that Christ set us free, therefore we are to go forth and blaze a new trail of freedom. We are leaving our old patterns and thought processes and learning new ways. Our walking may be clumsy at first. We may trip over our feet and feel afraid but with training and practice we can learn to walk in victory.
Prov. 21:31 says “the victory belongs to the Lord” and that is absolutely correct. We see this play out in the old testament with the nation of Israel. God is fighting for them and granting them victory but notice that in almost all cases He still calls the people to fight. Fighting is hard and scary – especially when you have big enemies to fight against – and this is exactly why the Israelites refuse to enter the promise land and are then forced to wander the desert for 40 years. God would have granted them the victory but they still had to pick up their beds and walk. The victory is the Lord’s but that does not mean that we don’t have work to do.
So let me ask you again, Do you want to get well? Do you want it enough to train and practice and fight for it?
If so, I hope you will join me for my first ever February Fight Club. This month long training is designed for Christian women who desperately want to get well by clinging to Christ, uprooting and taking captive anything that is contrary to God and replacing those thoughts and practices with truth and beauty and light.
To learn more about February Fight Club or to register click here or visit www.simpleofferings.net/fight-club
Psalm 144:1
Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;
Eph. 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
