Who are you?

For 38 years, this man had worn the label of invalid. In John 5, all that we know of his identity is a label that had been given to him by society.

“Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 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.”

Who are you? Many identify themselves by the labels society places on them, and in doing so, we fail to recall how God described us using words like masterpiece, beloved and his.

Titles change us in ways we might not think about very often. As long as we live from a place of hurt, we will never love others as effectively as we should. Because we are living from a place of pain and not a place of wholeness. But once I truthfully answer the question — who are you — and begin the process of healing, I will grow to love myself and others in the ways God intended.

Back to John 5 and the invalid. Beginning in verse eight, Jesus spoke these words to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”

On this day, everything changed for this man who had been immobile for 38 years.

He gathered his mat, and began to tell others about the source of his new life. John 5.15 explains, “The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.”

But this new life started with Jesus asking him a question.

In verse 6, “(Jesus) asked him, “Do you want to get well?” And that is the question we must answer as well. Healing is available to us. We just need to accept it. And then pick up our mats and begin living our new life.

Pick up your mat? Why would this man want to take something with him that reminded him of his past life? The thing that had identified him? I believe there is a greater story, a testimony. The mat allowed him to remind people who he used to be until Jesus came along and healed him and gave him a story to tell others of how they could be healed as well.

But he didn’t take up the mat and go and tell others about Jesus until he was healed. We will never love and serve others as effectively as we can until we are healed. But it is in our healing that we find the way to lead others to the one who healed us.