Stay With The Program By Continually Seeking Jesus

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘I love those who love Me, and those who seek Me find Me.  (Proverbs 8:17)

We live in a world that seeks immediate gratification and solutions. On TV and radio, I hear many advertisements for rapid weight loss, or quick enrichment by using an app on your smartphone that pulls in money for doing nothing. I have found, through experience, that most of these schemes don’t work.

One solution that did work was working on my higher education and earning a M.B.A. degree, which allowed me to stay in the position I was already in (and stay employed) with my government contracting employer. This required, however, to put the theory learned in the classroom to practical exercise.

The second working solution was following an exercise program and actually doing the exercises. The program had several DVDs for different days, and it assigned each DVD to an order that one performed each day. Each DVD was roughly 30 to 60 minutes of basic exercises that was focused on different parts of the body, and doing it each day for almost nine months I lost weight, gained strength and endurance, and got some definition and muscle tone.

Both solutions were not easy, no-effort solutions but ones that took dedication to expend time and effort to achieve the desired goal. In both cases, I eventually quit applying effort to these solutions. Retiring meant I no longer needed to apply the M.B.A. (writing blogs is a more of a natural passion and requires no financial or managerial applications), and once I stopped the exercise program (ironically to complete the M.B.A.), I slowly morphed back into being a ‘full-figured fellow’. Both solutions were meant to be continuous applications; they weren’t a quick ‘one-and-done’, no-effort required ‘gimme’.

In a previous Word-of-the-Day (20 October 2025), I referenced John 5:1-15, when Jesus healed the paralytic who had been waiting to get into the Bethesda pool near the Sheep Gate, as it was known for healing those who got into it, if they were the first one in upon the waters after it became stirred by an angel of God.

Continuing with that theme of the man at the Bethesda pool, what did those afflicted folks really want?  What were they seeking?  What were they hoping to find?  The answers probably varied in some personal degree individually, but likely they wanted in general the same thing. 

They were all seeking a physical healing, and hoping to find earthly comfort from their afflictions.  Those waiting at the pool, unfortunately, were not looking for God, or a relationship with Him, though He was providing the means for them to be healed. They were looking for a degree of pain-free peace and in a sense some self-gratification – their own action of getting into the pool first would heal their afflictions. 

This is not a condemnation of them, it is certainly understandable that they wanted to be either ‘normal’ or back to normal.  I can imagine the personal pain it must have been for those who were paralyzed back then, without wheelchairs, or perhaps without people caring for them.  I’ve seen in third-world countries folks who have had their legs amputated who ‘walk’ using their arms push down and swing themselves forward. 

It would be enticing to think simply jumping in a pool would be the answer to all the problems they had.  But they were looking for their solution in the wrong venue.  The pool would not save them, or likely not even heal them.  If one jumped into the pool to wash themselves off is one thing, but to believe the pool would heal them is another.

Putting in another context, playing the Florida Lottery.  I do not condemn anyone who plays every now and then if it’s for the entertainment, and all financial and family obligations are met.  But if one plays the lottery thinking the money would take all of their problems away and solve all their life’s issues are in for a big disappointment.  

Most big lottery winners end up broke or depressed in just a few short years after hitting it big. Their marriages often end as spouses compete and not complement their desires, and in the end are worse off in their lives than before winning. Faith in winning the lottery is looking for the solution in the wrong venue.  The lottery will not save oneself nor will it heal many of the problems faced daily by most.

A lottery win is a band-aid over the real issues that many are facing. Money can rent happiness for a bit, but it never really buys a permanent solution. Overspending with a little becomes overspending with a lot; a marriage that is held together superficially without God to bind the relationship together breaks apart through self-gratification and greed on both parties. The search for a solution through anything other than God only brings a patch over the problems that can be quickly torn off.

This is where Proverbs 8:17 comes in; Jesus wants us to seek Him first when we have issues.  When we seek Him, He will make Himself easily available, Jesus does not play ‘hide-n’-seek’.  Jesus wants us to love Him, and provide us with what we need.  Will it be a complete healing?  From a physical perspective, the answer is perhaps, if it glorifies Him and serves His purpose to reach others. 

What He gives in healing is to provide us what we need Spiritually, to overcome our physical ailments.  We have seen people healed miraculously, from cancer and other ailments.  More important is those who have not been healed physically, but have come to know peace through Christ and find His acceptance as sufficient Grace. 

We then have to continually seek Jesus and His counsel, in our study of His Word, our fellowship with other Christians, and in our prayerfully conversations with Him. He is not a ‘one-and-done’ solution but someone who requires and lifelong relationship.

The man healed by Jesus, after he found Jesus again in the Temple, began telling the priests and others that would listen that it was Jesus who healed him, and we can assume that he followed Jesus both before His crucifixion and after His resurrection and His Ascension.

Our stumbling block is when we start fading away from our relationship with Christ, when we step away from our walk with Him. Like stopping exercise, we begin to lose touch with His Word and we begin to fall back into disobedience; we cannot lose our Salvation but we can have our blessings pulled away until we wake up and get back onto His path.

We find that often it is really the need to have the Spiritual healing of Christ to overcome our physical ailments, and that our Faith in Him allows us to use overcoming of our ailments as a testimony in His Love.