Posts with important questions and answers

Where have you laid him? John 11:34

Jesus asked Mary to show Him the tomb where her brother, Lazarus had been buried. He could have spoken the words and brought Lazarus back to life, from a distance, or even before He and the disciples arrived in Bethany. Instead, He gives us a quick lesson on how to deal with grief.

Show Him your grief.
Mary and her sister called for Jesus. That simple, perhaps obvious, step often goes undone. We assume Jesus already knows (and He does) so we miss the deep intimacy that comes from laying our hearts open and bare before Him.

See His heart.
By asking Mary to take Him to the tomb, Jesus showed that He is a Savior who doesn't minimize our pain, but is willing to enter into it with us. At Lazarus' tomb, Jesus is deeply touched by the loss His friends are experiencing, but His grief goes much deeper. He mourns for a people who don't yet understand who He is or why He came. He also sees with human eyes, the curse, the pain that sin brings.

What about you? What do you have locked away? Pain. Failure. Loss. A dead spot in our hearts. Jesus asks – Where is it?

Take Me there.

Show it to Me.

Let Me bring that deadness into the light and heal it.

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Do you believe this? John 11:26
Did I not say to you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God? John 11:40

Jesus asked this question to Martha, whose brother Lazarus had died. She was devastated that Jesus hadn't arrived in time to heal her brother. Jesus told her Lazarus would rise again. She replied, "Yeah, I know at the last day…" Jesus tells her, "I AM the resurrection. Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" She answers, "Lord, I believe You are the Christ."

Later they stand at the tomb and Jesus commands it to be opened. Martha protests because her brother has been dead four days now. Jesus responds, "Did I not say to you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"

In Monday's post, we looked at unbelief, a willful choice to discount the evidence. With Martha, something different was going on. She was wrestling with doubt. Doubt says, "I want to believe, but…"

God isn't going to do this for me – Martha had seen Jesus heal others, knew He had raised the dead, but maybe she wasn't special enough to rate a miracle like that. Jesus was going to show her how special she really was.

This is too much – Martha admitted the stopping point of her faith: I believe You are the Christ. Or, Lord, I believe up to this point but I can't handle anymore. Jesus intended to show her what "Christ" meant.

This has never been done before – Jesus had raised hours-dead folks, but never a days-dead corpse. It was beyond what she could imagine. Jesus was going to expand her horizons.

God honors that desire to strengthen faith, and doubt marks the areas that need work. Doubt is intensely personal, as is its resolution. It is part of our growth. We can seize the opportunity to grow if we do several things:

• Identify it – In what areas do you doubt God?
• Admit it – Tell God specifically what you trust and where you waver.
• Watch for God's hand – He will address your concerns, and then challenge you to take faith steps further than you've ever gone before.

When you do, "you will see the glory of God."

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In John 10: 34-36, Jesus continues His face-off with the religious leaders. They were indignant that Jesus dared call Himself the Son of God. He quotes a psalm in which God Himself calls a group of leaders 'gods' because they received God's word and were responsible for carrying out His law and divine justice. In the religious leaders eyes, that was acceptable. No blasphemy there.

In the last post, we saw how Jesus WORDS were what set them off, but He brings the discussion back to His WORKS. If what He DID failed to substantiate what He SAID, then don't believe Him. But if His works validated His claim that He WAS the Son of God (and they did…) then the Pharisees and their cohorts had no excuse for their unbelief.

Unbelief is different than doubt. Unbelief is willful. It is hearing the words, seeing the evidence and choosing to discount it. We know how this works when it comes to salvation. God loves me. (He said so – WORDS.) Jesus Christ died for me. (A WORK that proves it.) If I believe those things, God responds to that BELIEF by erasing my sin debt and granting me eternal life.

Because we grasp that so easily as Christians -we call ourselves believers, after all- we tend to think that unbelief is no longer an issue for us. That's not always the case. Consider:

• God said He would take care of us (WORDS). He has taken care of us in the past (WORKS). God won't see us through some present difficulty (UNBELIEF).

• He said He would never leave us (WORDS). He gave us His Holy Spirit (WORKS). We feel abandoned and alone (UNBELIEF).

• God has a purpose for us (WORDS). He gave us spiritual gifts to accomplish that purpose (WORKS). We sit on the sidelines (UNBELIEF).

Jesus wouldn't let these guys weasel out of it. He confronted them with their unbelief. How will we respond when He confronts us with ours?

For which of those works do you stone me? John 10:32

Jesus had just finished explaining that He was the Good Shepherd, and His sheep hear His voice. He gives them eternal life, and no one can snatch them from the Father's hand. Then He dropped the bombshell, "I and My Father are one." Not just one in purpose, but one and the same. He and the Father were the same Being. For the third time in His ministry, the Jews picked up stones to stone Him to death for blasphemy. Not the works, the WORDS

As long as Jesus is doing good deeds, healing people, giving them hope, everything was fine. But when HIS WORDS required people to face the reality of who He is, that's when the trouble started.

People are no different. As long as the church, or individual believers are taking care of them, helping them out, encouraging them, they don't mind having us around. But WORDS about a holy God who holds them accountable to His standards bring a quick end to civil conversation.

We as believers aren't much different. We love Jesus as long as He stands beside us, comforts us, carries through, His works. But do we become indignant when faced with the reality of His WORDS? "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me." Or "If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you." OR "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."

We might never throw rocks, but do we ignore the commands that don't sit with us? Or rationalize the difficult sayings? (He didn't really mean THAT.)

We cannot accept Jesus' works, especially those on our behalf without embracing His WORDS, ALL of His WORDS.

Do you believe in the Son of God? John 9:35

Jesus healed a man who had been born blind. Immediately, the man was subjected to an intense interrogation at the hands of the religious leadership. They suggested that he was an imposter, that he and the healer were rank sinners for breaking the Sabbath, and finally they kicked him out of the synagogue, thereby sealing his spiritual doom. So they thought.

Jesus found him and asked him this simple question, do you believe? Do you believe in Me, the Son of God? Do you believe that just like I gave you physical sight, I can cure your spiritual blindness? Do you believe I have the answers?

When we are misunderstood, do we believe in the Son of God?

When we are doubted, questioned and falsely accused, do we believe in the Son of God?

When we are abandoned and alone, do we believe in the Son of God?

Or do we believe we can figure something out, we can make it on our own … Are we blind also?