At Oasis Church, we believe that the Bible is truth and needs to be
read and obeyed… and that all people following Jesus will do this!
It's part of God's plan to transform us and make us more and more like
Jesus.

With this is mind, the challenge was issued… read
through the Book of John, a chapter a day, for the next three weeks. I
will be sharing a couple of verses and thoughts that jumped out to me
each day… here we go!

John 5: 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years.6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, "Would you like to get well?"

• wow, this guy has been waiting, praying, and hoping for 38 years for a miracle, the answer to his prayers…amazing!
• The question Jesus asks is pretty obvious… and He asks us the same thing… do we want to get well?

  7 "I can't, sir," the
sick man said, "for I have no one to put me into the pool when the
water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me."
  8 Jesus told him, "Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!"
  9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath,10 so
the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, "You
can't work on the Sabbath! The law doesn't allow you to carry that
sleeping mat!"

• Jesus asks this question of us (and really everybody) but sometimes either we don't like His answer (He is the only way) or we give an excuse as to why it can't happen (I have sinned too much… no way God could forgive me)
• Jesus says, basically, "if you want it, it's yours! Get up, your healed!"
• for some reason, I thought of the "Seinfeld" episode where Elaine uses a bunch of exclamation points… if there ever was a reason to use them, it's found in verse 8 and 9!
• Why is it whenever there is an obvious work of God, the religious people try to deny or tear apart what God is doing? Hmmmm….
• God, help me not become religious… but always be quick to affirm and rejoice in Your Work!

16 So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules.17 But Jesus replied, "My Father is always working, and so am I."18 So
the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For
he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making
himself equal with God.

• interesting, God establishes the Sabbath and the Jewish religious leaders start giving Jesus a hard time for not following His own commandment properly! WOW!
• once again, Jesus says He is GOD… not just a good man or teacher…
• every person will have to come to grips with this in their lives… either Jesus is God or He's not…and then live with the reality of that decision!

 39 "You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!40 Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.

• this ties in with our message two weeks ago on the Bible… the reason we read it as Christ-followers is because it all points to Jesus!
• Old and New Testament… 66 different books…written over hundreds of years… pointing us to Him!
• We find life in God's Word because we find Jesus… wow!