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How God's Goodness Flows

                 You cannot fix what you do not understand.  That is true of electronics, cars, furnaces, sewing machines, and even your Spiritual life. 
                To sort out two key misunderstandings that often hold us back from God’s blessings, consider an incident in John 5.
                The chapter opens at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem.  People came to this pool hoping to be cured of various ailments.  The belief was that God would send an angel to stir the water and, when that happened, the first person in the pool was healed.  As Jesus walked by, he began a conversation with a man who had been coming to the pool for thirty-eight years.
                At one point, Jesus asked him, “Do you want to get well?” (verse 5).  That sounds like a rude question, but it implies two important truths.
                First, if anything good is going to happen, we must participate in the change.  Faith is not a passive activity. God is never going to force his blessings on us.  We cannot sit around and expect God to cater to us.  That will never work!  We must be part of the process. 
                Once we choose to actively follow, then we learn the second truth: God’s power is much greater than we believe or know.  When the man says he wants to be healed, Jesus says, “Get up!” (verse 8).  I love that!  No ceremony.  No incantation.  Jesus simply commands the man to get up and he does!
                Do you believe in a God like that?  Do you believe in a God who can do anything?  Too often I hear Christians saying, “Well, I don’t think God will do much here”.  Even when we do not say it, we act as if we are on our own and have no help.  In that case, we are the limiting factor.
                Ephesians 3:20-21 says, “Now to him who can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever! Amen.”  When we get it right, we understand that nothing is beyond hope because God’s power is immeasurable. 
                God will not bless us in any great way as long as we do nothing and believe that he can do nothing. 
                Change those two beliefs and everything changes.

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