Source: newsthemegh.com/Ransford Gyampo
Jesus told him, ” Stand up, pick your mat, and walk.” John 5 :8, NLT.
In John 5, Jesus, we are told, healed a man lying beside the pool of Bethesda.
This man had been a cripple for thirty-eight years. Jesus asked the man to get up, pick his mat and walk. Why was the man asked to pick his filthy mat with him even when he had been healed? The mat was to be carried away to remind the cripple of his bad situation and the grace of God in healing him.
In order words, the filthy mat was part of his story which was to be kept to serve as a reminder that, God healed him and that he must tell others about it.
Beloved, God may have intervened in our difficult situations but, the filthy mats that manifests in scars, perceptions, negative effects and lost opportunities may still have to remain with us.
We may not have to fight them. Actually, because it is a divine command that we take them with us, we may even fail in any attempt to throw them away. Past ailments, past mistakes, past setbacks, past defeats, and past failures may have given us marks and scars.
These scars won’t go away, so we simply have to carry them along because, they are a constant reminder of how God saved us from where we were and from the pain we suffered. These filthy mats help us in telling people about God and what He’s done in our lives, in a manner that also makes us humble and more dependent on Him.
So, you may still have your mat, but that’s simply to remind you of the greatness of God. Let us not quickly fight the filthy mats and let us not throw them away or strive hard to dissociate ourselves from them. For they are mere reminders that cannot undo what God has done for us.
This week, may we rise up, carry our mats and walk, in Jesus’ names. Amen