After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
    Now in Jerusalem by the sheep gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew
Beth-zartha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalid - blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ’Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered him,  ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
    Now that day was a Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’ But he answered them, ‘The man who man me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”? Now the man who would been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See you have been made well! Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the Sabbath.

• Are there sick people in your family, among your friends? Bring them, one by one, before the Lord asking him to do what is best for them. Maybe you're worried about your own health? Tell the Lord your anxieties and leave them with him. ‘Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you’(1 Peter 5:7).

 

• What might the Lord say in response to your prayer?