“I have no one” (1) – Compassion - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2025

When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, Do you want to be made well? The sick man answered Him, Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.
John 5:6–7

“I have no one” (1) – Compassion
The pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem had two reservoirs and was about the size of a football field. On each of the four sides of the pool was a colonnade. A fifth one was above the six-metre-wide dividing wall between the reservoirs. “In these lay a multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralysed.” One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years (verses 3–5). When Jesus asks him if he wants to be healed, he despairingly admits, “Sir, I have no man”. – What hopelessness!

Alone, lonely, and abandoned – do you perhaps feel like this too? Then remember that there is One who knows and understands you and who can help you. It is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He lived on earth back then; today He lives in heaven. He is still the same. His interest in the lonely and needy is unchanged, as is His compassion. We may not be able to see Him, but He sees us in our situation. And when we pray to Him, He hears us.

He healed the sick man back then, so that a new life began for him. Today, He wants to raise people to eternal life: “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live” (verse 25). This is far more than just becoming physically healthy.

(continued tomorrow)

Today’s reading: Exodus 20:8-21:6 · Luke 8:40-48