Time to look through new lenses

Shifting our personal paradigms is very difficult when you have lived it for many years. Your worldview and comfort zone is structured around it. This allows you to go about your daily activities in auto mode and not figure out what is coming next. But sometimes we fail to realize that there is something better when you do this. That was what happened to me when I discovered a whole new world when I started wearing glasses at the age of 10. I will never forget seeing how different and beautiful everything was. Jesus was pointing out that there is something better right under the noses of the Jewish people.

John 5:7-9
The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath.

The lame man at the pool of Bethesda thought he could only receive the healing if he stepped into the pool first. When Jesus healed the lame man, the only thing going through the minds of the Jewish leaders was that the healed man should not be carrying his bed around. In the rest of the chapter Jesus challenges the Jewish leaders' paradigm of what was going on in this season. Jesus is the promised Messiah and He was showing them His deep intimate relationship with God the Father and how through His words and actions is a witness of who He is. But the Jewish leaders were stuck in their paradigm about what the Messiah should look like.

What does the Saviour of the world look like to you? A statue in a revered building, or someone great who does big humanitarian work. The political leaders of your country; past or present? Make a paradigm shift and seek Jesus. I found Jesus at the age of 14 and never regretted it.

Father, thank you for meeting in my days as a youth.

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