Sunday 6 Apr 2014

April 6: John 11:1-16

Key Verse: John 11:14
So then he told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead’

Devotion:
Do you try to be tactful when you tell someone else of some bad news or do you just blurt it out to get it over with? I like to think that I am compassionate and break the news as gently as possible, but sometimes the news just has to be said how it is. I think that if the disciples had known that Lazarus was going to die, they would have made a plan to get there as quickly as possible and they would have been on at Jesus to do so.

God is the one who knows the best time and place for everything and sometimes we just don’t get it. God has a plan that He is working to. We don’t get to see the grand scheme of things but rather limit our view to what we can see in this world. That is exactly what the disciples were focused on and what Jesus had to teach them about. When they turned toward earthly wisdom and practices, He stopped them with this plain talk “Lazarus is dead!”

Are you going to wait until God has to drop a bombshell on you, or are you going to try to listen to what He has in mind for you? When we pray using the Lord’s Prayer, we ask for His will to be done and not our own. We should be living up to this and not trying to bend His ways to fit in with our own ideals. I know it is hard to listen to God when the world is screaming out so loud, but we can go to a quiet place with Him and just listen; just as Jesus did when He withdrew to the garden to pray.

God wants personal time with us so that He can get through to us. Sometimes we are not going to like what He has to say because we have shut Him out for so long and the only way that He finally gets through is by allowing something drastic to happen! I don’t like it either, but I know that our God does things for His glory and not so that He can intentionally hurt us in any way. He is a God that loves us first of all and part of that love is telling us the truth, whether we want to hear it now or not!

Points to Ponder:
Do you read your bible alone?

Do you skip over the hard parts?