Category: Thoughts and Meditations

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” – John 11:5-6

There will be times when we pray that we’ll struggle to understand why God doesn’t answer immediately, doesn’t answer in the way we desire, or doesn’t seem to answer at all. Here we can learn from the story of Lazarus and his sisters. Hearing that His beloved friend Lazarus was sick, Jesus waited to go to him. He waited until Lazarus died and Mary and Martha mourned for their brother.

Jesus waited, because He had something better and more important planned for everyone involved and the entire world. He waited and permitted Lazarus to die so that He could bring Him back to life and prove to the world the truth of John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”. Because Jesus waited, we who believe in Him have confidence that after we die we will indeed live forever!

The delay was brutally painful for this family to bear, just as the tragedy and suffering we see around us in this fallen world is often painful to bear. And so we wonder why Christ delays and God seems not to hear our pleas. In truth, Christ’s Spirit is here with us at all times and God hears every request. But they know that the best is yet to come and they answer our prayers in light of an eternal perspective and in the way that is best for us and the world. That’s can be hard to understand but we must trust that God knows far better than we what is truly best.

“Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” – John 9:32-33

There are some in the modern era who struggle with the idea of miracles. However, if there’s even the slightest possibility of an all-powerful God, then miracles are really no issue. If such a God wishes to act in ways that go against the usual patterns He has established for the world, He can. The question then becomes, what do you do when presented with an unprecedented miracle?

John’s gospel is clear about what you should do: believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Son of God. The miracles he describes reveal Jesus’s all-encompassing power over nature, sickness, disability, and death. They demonstrate that Jesus possesses the full power of God. Jesus performed miracles to demonstrate the truth of His words and claims, that He is the way, the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father except Him.

Of course, there will always be those who refuse to believe, either in the miracles or especially in the implications of those miracles. John 9 is the story of some who stubbornly refuse to accept the evidence of their fully-functioning eyes. They are spiritually blind, though they see quite well physically. We pray that God grants everyone eyes to see Jesus for Who He is, lifting the veil of spiritual blindness.

“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” – Judges 21:25

The people of Israel failed to embrace God as their king, which was a required “part of the deal” in their covenant with God. The book of Judges reveals the terrible effects of that rejection of God’s authority: tribalism, idolatry, mistrust and abuse of others, misplaced loyalty, violence, sexual sin, moral relativism, human trafficking, human degradation, destruction, and civil war.

That sounds a lot like where we are today as we see and consume the poisoned fruit of radical autonomy’s mantra, “you do you, I’ll do me.” As followers of Christ, we must recognize that the way out of this is for everyone to recognize and obey the Lordship of Jesus. But wait before hitting the like button…

The way out of this mess begins with Christians really, truly committing to stop doing whatever seems right in our own eyes and truly kneel in submission before King Jesus. We need to get our own hearts, lives, and priorities right first.

Then we must do what we’ve been commanded to do by our King: make disciples of Him. If you lament the state of your country and long for her to be a “Christian” nation, please understand that biblically that isn’t a thing. Not in the New Testament. Countries aren’t Christian, people are.

A nation is Christian when all its citizens genuinely embrace Christ. The solution to our problems isn’t to “fix the country” or return to some past golden age. The solution is for followers of Christ to reach individuals, millions of individuals reached one at a time with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We do need to fix our broken culture and fallen world, but we don’t get to outsource that hard work to politicians or parties, because the solution isn’t political, it’s gospel. It’s not national, it’s personal.

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” – John 8:12

Even as light streams through the window and birds chirp on a spring morning, we must acknowledge that this is a dark world. There is the darkness of uncertainty surrounding COVID-19, finances, safety, health, freedom, policy, facts, and even truth itself. There is the darkness of loneliness, fear, despair, and depression. There is the darkness of anger, hatred, evil, and death very much at work in the world.

The more we try to figure things out ourselves and chart our own course, the deeper we eventually wind up in the darkness. But there is light! There is light available to all who embrace it: the light of Jesus Christ. Embrace Him as Lord and Savior. If you truly follow Him and what He taught as you navigate this dark and uncertain world, you will stay in the light. Jesus brings light into the dark places and when we follow Him, His light is always with us.

We will still have seasons of uncertainty, confusion, doubt, and despair. The darkness will always try to surround us. In those times we must resolve to simply follow Jesus – despite our uncertainty, confusion, doubt, and despair. Rather than wander off, we must follow closer in faith. Even when we don’t understand why He leads us as He does, we must commit to follow Him and we’ll eventually realize that as we do, we were and are, always in the light.

“And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’” – John 8:7

Sin is very serious and must be dealt with. And it has been. The point Jesus so vividly teaches is that everyone has a sin problem – we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory and standard for our lives (Romans 3:23). That’s a very, very serious problem because the penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23). On the topic of sin, we must look at ourselves before looking at others. Rather than condemning someone to die for his or her sin, we need to truly realize that we deserve eternal death for our sin, yet Christ was condemned to die for it instead.

Our sin separated us from God, leaving us spiritually dead. On our own, we cannot permanently defeat our sin, much less pay the penalty for it. However, Christ died on the cross to pay our penalty and to defeat the power of sin over us. He never sinned, but died so that in God’s judgment we would be forgiven for our sins. This is the gift of God’s grace that’s given to everyone who truly believes in Jesus as Lord and Savior. As we become more keenly aware of our sin and Who dealt with it for us, it should move us from a heart of condemnation to a heart of restoration toward those still trapped in their sin. We should desire to offer that gift of grace to those who, like us, are sinful. We are not to turn a blind eye toward sin, but rather in recognizing it, we must offer the life-giving cure for sin, rather than the life-robbing condemnation of a fellow sinner.