“Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. ² Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. ³ Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. 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?” —John 5:1-6

Questions are an invitation to something deeper.

“The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?’” —Genesis 3:1

“¹³ When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ ¹⁴  ‘Well,’ they replied, ‘some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.’ ¹⁵ Then he asked them, ‘But who do you say I am?’ ¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’” —Matthew 16:13-16

“ ⁸ When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. ⁹ Then the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’” —Genesis 3:8-9

“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.’”
—John 5:7

Do you really want things to change?

Being healed changes everything.

“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!’ ¹¹ But he replied, ‘The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’’ ¹² ‘Who said such a thing as that?’ they demanded. ¹³ The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. ¹⁴ But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, ‘Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.’ ¹⁵ Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.” —John 5:8-15

The focus of healing has always been eternal.