We know Jesus changed the lives of everyone He healed, but He especially changed the lives of paralyzed people through healing. I will take a closer look at how He changed their lives.

In my last post, I gave the first part of this post on Jesus changing the lives of paralyzed people. In this post, I’m looking at a couple more places Jesus changed the lives of paralyzed people.

Jesus healed all kinds of illnesses and disabilities throughout His ministry.. Of particular interest to me personally was when He healed paralyzed people. These were people who were paraplegics because there was no technology around to maintain a quadriplegic.

But that doesn’t stop my faith from being increased every time I read these accounts. I want to take a closer look at Jesus healing paralyzed people and how He changed their lives forever. Jesus cares about our physical bodies and the illnesses we get.

But His healing often entails more than just physical restoration. It becomes a restoration of the entire life of a person. This is a study near and dear to my heart. I am still believing in Jesus for my total healing from paralysis.

Jesus Changed the Life of a Paralyzed 38-Year-Old

This account is an incredible encounter coming from John 5:1-9. While Jesus is at one of the feasts, He intentionally goes to a certain place in Jerusalem. This is by the Sheep Gate. It’s a place where there are five colonnades called Bethesda and there are many who are sick.

The man at this pool has been paralyzed for 38 years, probably his whole life. John 5:6 says that Jesus knew the man was laying there a long time. We’re not talking about it being the end of the day and he had been there since morning. I think Jesus knew the man had been going to this place seeking healing for many, many years. Otherwise, Jesus’s question is not as perceptive.

Jesus changes the life of this paralyzed man when He asks one of the most incredible questions in the Gospels. This man has been going to this place to receive healing for a long time, and Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be healed?” Why? It is obvious the man wants to be healed, right? He’s been going there expecting healing for many years.

Even though he has gone there for years, he keeps doing the same thing every day. It’s been many years, and nothing has changed. Why does Jesus ask him this? Well, who keeps doing the same thing day in and day out with the same results and just keeps doing it if they want something to change?

Jesus asks because after doing that for so long, it’s possible the man was no longer looking for healing. Perhaps he had friends there he visited every day. Israelite culture was not set up for people who were paralyzed. Most of them begged in the streets for a living. There wasn’t any other compassion ministry set up for them.

Jesus’s question is perceptive because Jesus knows this man might have given up on his healing. His response is even more telling. Instead of saying yes or no, he gives the excuse that he has no one to put him into the pool when it is stirred.

While he is trying to get in, probably pulling himself with his arms, someone else gets in first. He offers Jesus and excuse, or a complaint, rather than a straight answer from his heart. I think we do that to Jesus sometimes. He knows our hearts, and yet we are afraid to admit what He already knows.

I have to make a quick aside because you might be scratching your head asking, “stirring the pool?” and “someone beats him into the pool?” If you were on your game as you read this account, you may have noticed verse 4 is missing in most Bibles. It’s not really missing. If you follow the footnote after verse 3, most provide a translation but tell you this verse was not in some manuscripts.

Without going into too much detail (unless you want me to do that in a post somewhere) newer Bibles have followed the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament and don’t have this verse because it is not in them. However, I believe this verse belongs here because it explains the man’s response.

John 5:4 reads, “waiting for the moving of the water; 4 for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred the water: whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.”

Whether this was an accurate understanding of what happened or not, it is what people believed happened. This man believes this myth about this water and wastes much of his life trusting in something he cannot be healed from because he cannot be the first in the water.

Are you trusting in anything or anyone other than Jesus for your healing? He might be able to ask you the same question he asked this man. I can’t imagine if Jesus had discussed or sadness on his face. With much grace, Jesus tells the man to stand up, take his bed, and walk.

The man shows no faith in Jesus that Scripture records. Jesus changes the life of this paralyzed man out of his lack of faith. The man believes in a magical pole more than he believes in Jesus. Later we find out he didn’t even know who Jesus was. But Jesus heals this man immediately, a stark contrast to the 38 years he sat by that pool and hoped for healing. Jesus heals instantly what could take us and doctors a long time.

Jesus Changed the Life of Paralyzed People in Acts

Jesus’s healing ministry extended through the apostles and the Church in Acts, and it continues through our hands today. We will look at how Jesus changed the life of paralyzed people in two accounts. Acts 3:1-10 tells us the account of a lame man at the Temple healed by Peter and John as they went there to pray that day.

This man is begging for his livelihood, counting on the generosity of others, because he cannot work. Who knows if he even makes enough every day to survive. Maybe his family helps him, but because of the culture of that day, this is the man’s only recourse.

Peter and John, instead of giving him money, give him something much more. Peter pulls him up on to his feet after telling him he doesn’t have any money. But he knows Jesus and simply pulls the man up as Jesus would and the Bible tells us his ankles and legs are made strong again, and the man can walk.  Jesus can do miracles reversing years of damage to our bodies in paralysis!

One more example of Jesus healing the lives of paralyzed people comes from Acts 14:8-10. In the short account Paul is preaching to the crowd and notices this man lame from birth. All he does is notice that the man had the faith to be healed and told the man to stand upright on his feet.

I love Paul because he did not do this quietly. In front of the whole crowd, he shouted at the man to do this. Because the man had faith, he did not say, “But I’ve never walked.” The man believes and stands up.

Even when we are told to do something we would think we can’t do or is unnatural, that command may be directed toward our faith to see the impossible and incredible happened in our bodies.

Praying for Your Healing

Mighty Lord Jesus, I ask for my brother and sister that You would heal them and me from this paralysis. You know the difficulties of disability and unemployment, the suffering that goes way beyond just the paralysis of their body. I pray for Your full restoration of our bodies and health right now in Your blessed and powerful name, amen.

Up Next

We have seen that Jesus changed the lives of many paralyzed people in the Gospels and Acts. Next, we will be looking at why Jesus healed people with disabilities.

Image by Gregory Akinlotan from Pixabay