Home thoughts from abroad.wordpress.com

John 11: 7-16: ”Let us go…”(please click here for todays passage)

There comes a time to get up and go when God shows you the clear path of duty. Get up and go and take others with you, to learn, and to help meet the need you have become aware of.

1. Go – if it is God’s will – even though it may mean danger (8). Don’t let fear stop you doing the right thing. Don’t allow the discouraging words of others to keep you pressed up against the buffers when you should be rolling down the track.
2. Go – if it is God’s will – according to the ”light” He gives you (9, 10). If God gives you ”light” on a matter, that is not merely for scribbling a note in your journal. Chances are He’s giving you something to DO. You may need further light on the timing of the action you are being shown. But the basic principle is, if God shines ”daylight” on your path, walk in it.
3. Go – if it is God’s will – even though the company may often be disappointing (11-13, 16). The disciples repeatedly failed to understand Jesus – like here, where they thought He was saying that Lazarus had just dropped off: ‘ ”Master, if he’s gone to sleep, he’ll get a good rest and wake up feeling fine.” Jesus was talking about death, while his disciples thought he was talking about taking a nap.’ (The Message.) And Thomas’ words (16) may have been full of courage, but they sound rather gloomy and resigned, and may have spread negativity like a cloak around the others. (Thomas was also ”called Didymus”, which means ‘twin’. We don’t know who his twin was, but I can sometimes feel that I am!! I can be so negative and doubting.) We are called to partner with fellow Christians, and we can regularly feel disappointed with one another. We are sinful by nature, and even though we are being changed, the sin repeatedly shows through, and we hurt each other. But as much as other people may disappoint me, when I look in the mirror I frequently see a disappointing reflection. As someone said, in the church we are ”Building with bananas.” We are all a bit bent out of shape. Jesus takes us with Him on His mission. We may let Him down, and fail each other; but the call remains to pull together for the sake of the Kingdom.
4. Go – if it is God’s will – though the challenge is huge (14, 15). It doesn’t get bigger than raising the dead, but Jesus is more than equal to it, even though we are not. As William Carey said, ”Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God.” If God is for us…!!!
5. Go – if it is God’s will – but go in His timing (6). It may be hard for people to understand God’s timescale; but He knows what He is doing. Trust Him. There’s a purpose, and one day you will see the other side of the tapestry, whereas now you see only a mass of tangled threads.

Just one final thought. The disciples did misunderstand Christ here (12, 13). Nevertheless, throughout the New Testament, death, for the believer, is spoken of in terms of ”sleep”. Bishop Thomas Ken wrote:

”Teach me to live that I may dread,

The grave as little as my bed.”

 John 11:1-6: Tell Jesus.(please click here for todays Bible passage)

Jesus had people in His world who got sick (1) Such an experience isn’t unique to you and me. The Lord knows and cares and understands how it feels when you have those close to you who are suffering. Jesus, it seems, had such a special relationship with Lazarus, that the unwell man could be referred to simply as ”the one you love” (3). The fifth verse seems to underline Jesus’ love for each member of this family. It was a personal love for ”…Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” It is important that we, the readers, should grasp something of His heart for these dear three, because, superficially it could be appear that He was uncaring (6). But the Lord’s delays are not necessarily His denials.

The people written into the gospel story are real people (2). They are not pain free. They do not float on soft, fluffy white clouds, far above the rugged rigours of real life. The Bible shows that those with great love for Jesus are not thereby exempt from suffering. They are not inoculated against tears (33).This Mary had a great heart (2). It throbbed with immense love for Christ (2; see 12:3).But it was also a heart full of love for her nearest and dearest; a soft and tender heart I believe. How precious it is to know that we can tell Jesus (3). Whoever it concerns; whatever the need, tell Jesus. Bring to Him all the pain and sorrow and earnest desires of your heart. ”What a Friend we have in Jesus…Take it to the Lord in prayer.”

But sometimes, Jesus may allow things to happen in your life and mine where it may look like He doesn’t love us. We know the Word states that He loves us, ”Yet…” (6). There is a ”Yet” that comes into our experience, and we have to take it by faith that He loves us while life seems to proceed in an unloving-looking direction. In reading this story it’s important to see that Jesus didn’t say that Lazarus would not die, but that death would not be the end of the matter (4). If Mary and Martha (and Lazarus) looked for healing, they were not wrong to do so. But they got far more than they asked or thought (Ephesians 3:20).

If people say that sickness can not be for the glory of God, let them be educated by verse 4.

And if you are praying and waiting for an important answer to come through, and you’re wondering why it’s got held up on the spiritual A1, do take on board that God’s delays are not necessarily His denials. In fact, as Ronald Dunn writes, He ”sometimes answers later in order to answer better.”

Prayer: I confess, dear God, that I can become impatient. But I know I need to accept that your timescale is not the same as mine. You graciously answer my prayers, but it has to be your way not mine; and your time, not mine

 John 10: 31-42: ‘Liar, lunatic or Lord?(please click here for todays notes)

I once heard a preacher say that, whatever the human reasons given for the death of Jesus; the real reason He died was because He clearly claimed to be God, and His opponents realised this (33). For them, this was blasphemy. So Jesus had to die. (Although our passage again intimates that they could not take His life from Him before God’s appointed time: verse 39. As we have seen, Jesus had the authority to both lay down His life and take it up again: verses 17, 18). When Jesus declared that He was the good shepherd, that was tantamount to claiming equality with God, who is portrayed as the Shepherd of Israel in the Old Testament.

It has often been pointed out by writers, like C.S. Lewis, that a man who made the sort of claims Jesus made could not be just a good man. Either He is who He says He is, or we have to say something terrible about Him. Basically, when you consider the claims of Christ, you are shut up to three possibilities: He’s either, mad, bad or God; liar, lunatic or Lord. In His days on earth, many believed in His Lordship (40-42), and many still do.

It is also encouraging to note that, in later days, there was fruit from John the Baptist’s ministry that he never knew about (40-42).So, as someone rightly observed, judge each day, not by the harvest, but by the seeds sown.

 John 10:19-29: Winter!(please click here for todays passage).

We should not be surprised if we find ourselves on the receiving end of the same responses Jesus got. It may be disappointing, but it will happen. We have seen a similar pattern of reactions in earlier parts of John. Jesus came to ”bring a sword” and people were, and are, divided over Him (19). Some are interested and open (21). Others are angry and abusive (20). There are those who even want to kill Him (31) – and now that translates into violence towards His people. Some are just plain obtuse (24, 25), and they leave you scratching your head!!

”It was winter…” (22b). It was winter in more than one sense. It was deepest, darkest winter in terms of Jesus’ relationship with His Jewish opponents. You can feel the icy chill in the air. But in this highly charged atmosphere, Jesus just kept right on walking with the Father (25, 29/30), doing His works and preaching the word. He did this in the belief that His ”sheep” would hear His voice and come to Him (27, 28).

Let us do the same. His sheep are out there in our communities. We play our part and expect them to be drawn.

PRAYER: Whatever people say or do, keep me Lord faithful to you.

John 9:35-41: There are none so blind…(please click here for todays passage)

1. Jesus comes to the persecuted with encouragement (35): This poor man had been ‘thrown out’ (excommunicated) because, unlike his cowardly parents, he dared to stand up for Jesus. Jesus came to him and spoke to him. As I read this passage earlier today, I was forcibly reminded of my solemn responsibility and great privilege to remember in prayer all who have been thrown out; those who suffer oppression for their Christian faith (Hebrews 13:3). Jesus will come to them again and again in many ways, including in the prayers of His people.
2. Jesus comes to the seeker with revelation (35-38): It is fascinating to witness, throughout this ninth chapter, the gradual opening of the man’s eyes to the truth of who Jesus is – right up to the point of worship. The blind man came to Jesus because Jesus came to him in the first place (1). He was a seeker because Jesus sought him.The initiative was with Christ, and whatever the Lord commences He sees through to culmination; He leads that process across the finish line. (Philippians 1:6). ”Suddenly the picture comes into complete focus for him, and he believes – one of many individuals, throughout John’s story, who make the final step which John wants every reader of his book to make (20.31).” Tom Wright: ‘John for everyone’, p.145.
3. Jesus comes to the religious leaders with rebuke (39 – 41): Knowledge equals privilege, and accountability comes with it. There is an irony in these words because in one sense the Pharisees were not blind. They had the Old Testament and they taught it to others. They had spiritual knowledge. They had God’s Book. But they refused to let it lead them to Jesus (5:37-40). Tom Wright says that the Pharisees are ”sticking to their principles at the cost of the evidence…Not only are they wrong, but they have constructed a system in which they will never see that they are wrong. It is one thing to be genuinely mistaken, and to be open to new evidence, new arguments, new insights. It is another to create a closed world, like a sealed room, into which no light, no fresh air, can come from outside. That condition, in fact, is not far removed from that which Paul describes in the first chapter of Romans (1.32). There are some people who not only do the wrong thing but adjust their vision of the moral universe so that they can label evil as ‘good’ and good as ‘evil’. Once that has happened, such people have effectively struck a deal not only with evil but with death itself. They have turned away from the life-giving God and locked themselves into a way of thinking and living which systematically excludes him – and, with him, the prospect and possibility of rescue” (p.146).

John 9:24-34: Simple courage.(please click here for todays passage)

The blind man’s parents passed the ball to him. Once he found it at his feet, he did not lack ideas for what to do with it. He showed considerable pluck, and took the clerics on – even toying with them it seems (27). They had no good arguments against his healing or against his words, so they did what people often do in such circumstances. They picked up mud and threw it. I pray that faced with hostile people, I will not hide, but stand up for Jesus, and offer my testimony. They may wipe their secularised boots all over it, but let them hear it.

Within this passage you can read the famous statement of (25): ”One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” This is the story of every Christian. Through the telling of this story we too are gradually being brought to see Jesus, who is ”the light” (5; see also 1:4,5). He is opening our blind eyes.

PRAYER: Lord, I know I can all too easily play the coward. So please give me the courage I will always need to stand up for you.