Covered in Stink

Leadership

For almost four decades, he just accepted his fate. Year after year without making progress, I imagine he just gave up, wallowing in his own pity. Then one day, someone asked him one of the most difficult questions any of us has to answer. Answer one way and accept the status quo, answer the other way and accept that you have to shed your excuses.

"'Would you like to get well?' '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.' Jesus told him, 'Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!' Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, 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!'" (John 5:7-10)

Would you like to get well? Saying yes means stop making excuses and do what it takes. Jesus is not the god of excuses. He is not the god of "I can't". Never once do I recall him saying to anyone that "It's okay, you get a pass. You aren't really capable." Nope, He nailed excuses to the cross and said, "They are finished. Watch this, anything is possible. Quit whining, grab my nail-pierced hands, pick up your excuses, and let's go!"

Now the fun part. Those legalistic self-righteous punks who say the "law" doesn't allow that. That is not how we have always done it. You can't help someone on the day of rest, and you surely can't carry your own mat and take care of your responsibilities even though you have been lying in your own waste for 38 years. Don't break tradition. Jesus tells them to take their laws, roll them up tighter than a sleeping mat, and shove them where the Son doesn't shine. Life isn't about laws, it's about love, and love takes action...no matter what day it is.

Stop making excuses. Breakthrough is on the other side of excuse.

The way you have always done it may not work anymore.

Don't limit today's opportunities by yesterday's methods.

The jerks who judge you, just ignore. They are just jealous, self-preservationists.

Excuses and the way we have always done it will keep you paralyzed and covered in stink. Grab His hand, get up, wash off, and get it done! Your miracle is waiting for movement.