By acknowledging our sin and our helplessness to remedy it, we are now ready to embrace new life in Christ. Only Christ can provide it, just as only Christ could provide the healing the paraplegic man in John 5 needed. But our receiving it involves so much more than professing some special words. Beginning a new life means reinventing ourselves and leaving the old us behind forever.
The paraplegic man never looked back after his miraculous healing. His new life was too great. It would have been absurd to do so. What about us? Are we truly ready to become new creations in Christ?