Scripture
When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. John 5:6-7; 14-15

Observation
For some the water has to be just right. They won’t follow the confidence of Jesus unless there are supernatural moments, signs from heaven, or strange coincidences that give them courage to jump in. The man wouldn’t walk until there were bubbles in the water. Some of us won’t walk forward unless we see something extraordinary happen in our ordinary circumstances. We are crippled too.

For some there must be right connections. They depend upon the power of their network to connect them with the right people to put them into the water at just the right time, otherwise they will not walk. But they remain paralyzed because of their address list, because friends lose interest.

For others there must be public approval. When the healed man met men in the temple bonded by group-think he ratted on Jesus. Freedom is threatening to those who listen only to what others think rather than to what Jesus says. When they see one human being roaming free from the leash of their common sense they are quick to handcuff him back into subservience to their crippled view of life. The disabled man had been healed to walk, but sadly he did not follow Jesus. In the end, he became a spiritual handicap because he cowered to the crowd and did not follow Jesus.

Every word that Jesus spoke in the gospels is full of a courage that is out of this world. He wants to do more than just have the crippled walking, he wants them to go beyond and to use that mobility to follow him. Jesus has courage and he wants us to walk in confidence into places we have never walked before. We need to step past our immature need for omens, or our nailbiting over our network of friends or even past the disapproval the small-minded. Jesus heals us to follow him, and follow him we must do.

Application
There are many times I wait for perfect conditions or just the right people or even buy in from conventional wisdom. This is not one of those times. I must arise, roll up my sleeping bag and walk on after Jesus.

Prayer
Father, I sense the water is bubbling today. But I don’t need the bubbling waters for I have Jesus and that is all that I need. Today I chose to follow him. Give me courage and confidence to walk and keep on walking. Amen.

Press the arrow to listen to Newsboys’ “In Christ Alone” as you read about today’s fight.

Scripture
One of your men puts to flight a thousand, for the LORD your God is He who fights for you, just as He promised you. Joshua 23:10

Observation
Life is not a shuffle, it’s a fight, so we cannot approach it with halfheartedness. We must fight to win, for the Lord and his cause matters. This fighting spirit should infuse everything that we do.

But if we could view our day from God’s point of view we would quickly see that we are not alone in this effort of living. There are unseen angels. There is the gust of the Holy Spirit blowing behind what we do. Overarching all is our Father, so secure in his power that he need not fight at all.

Application
The greatest reassurance to me today is that this fight is not up to me. I am responsible to fight in the zone God has chosen for me. I am charged to throw my whole heart into the fray. But really the pack behind my punch is from Christ.

Prayer
Father, there is a part of me that retracts from the fight. Sometimes it is reluctance. Sometimes it is laziness. Sometimes it is the feeling of being overwhelmed. Sometimes I prefer peacemaking. But I wrap myself with the promise today that you are working through me to fight. I give you my sword. Use me. Amen.

Press the arrow to listen to Matt Redman sing “Shine” while reading today’s devotion on revolutionary words.

Scripture
We cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. Acts 4:20

Observation
These words by defiant apostles must rank right up there with Patrick Henry’s, “Give me liberty or give me death!” They were words bigger than the persons who spoke them. Like bulldozers, those speech bubbles have plowed a trail that billions have followed.

What was the gunpowder that fired those words? EXPERIENCE. A fresh relationship with Christ, not just memories of the past three years, but a vivid, present connection, caused them to speak then and think later.

Application
Revolutions fizzle out. The patriotism that sparks them burns up in a few short years. What of our Christian revolution? Is there any life left in us that comes from Peter and John’s defiance? It my fizzle in others, but I pray that it will not be so with me.

Prayer
Father, may my experience of Jesus be so effervescent that it causes me to to say things bigger than me and to commit to obedience greater than my strength, because I am working out of a vivid revelation of you. Amen.

Press the arrow to listen to Chris Tomlin sing Amazing Grace while you read today’s devotion.

Scripture
“Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?

Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” Judges 6:13-14

Observation
The greatest obstacle to answered prayer can be me. The problem is not with God. He wants to rescue. The problem instead is with my skewed view of reality.

Gideon had a head problem. He had a faultless chain of logic that was totally wrong but made perfect sense. Bad things were happening, therefore he assumed that God was against his people. The difficulty of his logic was that it exonerated Gideon from attempting anything to challenge the status quo. He felt perfectly justified to hide like a fugitive in his own land, choking on chaff dust, because God was against them all.

We too block answers to prayer when we see God as the source of our problems instead of the beginning of our solutions. If we think life’s problems are God’s fault why try to change things?

There is a higher, heavenly perspective that the angel brought into Gideon’s life. This heavenly logic is like a gust of fresh air in a stuffy room. Here’s the new logic: assess your personal strengths and use them and God will use you. The presence of potential in Gideon’s life was proof that God was with him. He later proved himself as a leader, strategist and warrior. Once unpackaged the problem was solved.

Application
Answers to prayer require as much a change in my heart as in God’s heart. We must exchange faulty thinking for fresh perspective. Instead of asking, “What does God have against me” we should instead ask, “What do I have going for me?” The answer to prayer is not external, it is internal. Inside of me God has placed the potential for the answer. I have to change my outlook so God can use what he has given me to change the world around me.

Prayer
Father, give me a clearer and clearer understanding of what you have invested into my life so that you can work through my life. Amen.