You understand, his whole thinking is like a victim. There’s nothing there except blame and excuse. Jesus said – “Do you want your life to be different? Will you make a choice?” You see, our life, God has given us a free will. He’s given us the power to make choices. And the life you are living now is the result of the choices you’ve made. It’s not all the bad things that happened to you, it’s how you chose to respond. So God gives you the power to choose what you’ll do with your life.
When Jesus died on the cross, He died to break the power of sin. When He rose from the dead, He defeated the devil, He totally broke the power of sin. He made it possible for every person to be free from the power of sin, to be free from evil spirits. “Do you want to be made whole? Do you want to be free?”
See, the issue now lies with us. God has done on the cross for us, all that needs to be done. Do you want to be made whole? Will you make a choice? A choice to respond to God. A choice to believe His word. Do you want to be made whole? Do you want it to be different? If you want a different future, you need to start by making different choices.
“Well, I haven’t had much education.” “Well why don’t you choose to get some?” “Well, I was terribly treated. I’m so angry about that.” “Well, would you choose to forgive?” “Well I can’t get over what happened to me.” “Would you choose to let it go? Would you choose to go to counselling? Would you choose to get some help? Do you want to be made whole?! Do you want to be different?!” “Oh well, it’s my husband. You don’t understand what he’s like. He drinks so badly. He’s so bad to me. That’s why I’m always depressed.” “Do you want to be made whole?! It’s a choice whether you let that happen to you. We have the power of choice.”
So when Jesus died on the cross, He broke the power of sin and made it possible for you to make a choice; a choice to receive Him and have the power of sin broken; a choice to follow Him and live a different life. Every day you wake up, you have the power of choice. Every day when you wake up you can choose to walk with God. You choose your attitude for the day. You can choose a positive attitude, a negative attitude. You can choose to believe God, you can choose to remain in defeat.
“Do you want to be made whole?” That’s what Jesus said, and it drew out of him the condition of his heart. Then Jesus spoke to him “Rise and be healed.” The man snapped out of it and stood up. “Woah, I’m standing.” Then He said to him a little later, He said: “Don’t continue sinning or a worse thing will happen.” In other words, Jesus connected the condition of his life to sin in his life, and Jesus came not just to deal with sickness, not just to deal with demons, but to deal with the root issue in our life – the power of sin that separates us from God.
Do you want to be made whole? Wholeness begins with a decision and it’s also a journey. The journey to be made whole in your spirit begins with the decision to receive Christ. God puts the spirit in you, and you become connected and alive to God. The journey to wholeness involves many decisions – decisions daily on giving God access to your life and choosing to agree with Him about life, and to let go of your old ways and old opinions. When you begin to walk with Jesus, it’s a journey of wholeness. As we rise each day and connect with Him, and we begin to let His words get in our heart, we begin to change.
You can stop at any point. You can lie down at any point. So I find many people – some don’t know Christ, and they’re lying down on the inside. Defeated by life. Dependent on others. Living like a victim. A sad thing is to see Christians lying down, who came to Christ and stood up again to walk with God, and something happened – someone offended you, someone let you down, something negative happened. And instead of standing and believing God and asking God to show you how to handle it, you lay down on the inside and then couldn’t get up.
Jesus wants to help you today. He wants to speak into your life and get you back up again into the place of serving and functioning like you ought to be, walking with God again in a place of life.
Why don’t we close our eyes right now.