John 11 Today's Daily Bread

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God Bless You Today, Lena B

John 11The Death of Lazarus
1A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. 2This is the Mary who poured the expensive perfume on the Lord's feet and wiped them with her hair. F48 Her brother, Lazarus, was sick. 3So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, "Lord, the one you love is very sick."
4But when Jesus heard about it he said, "Lazarus's sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God. I, the Son of God, will receive glory from this." 5Although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, 6he stayed where he was for the next two days and did not go to them. 7Finally after two days, he said to his disciples, "Let's go to Judea again."
8But his disciples objected. "Teacher," they said, "only a few days ago the Jewish leaders in Judea were trying to kill you. Are you going there again?"
9Jesus replied, "There are twelve hours of daylight every day. As long as it is light, people can walk safely. They can see because they have the light of this world. 10Only at night is there danger of stumbling because there is no light." 11Then he said, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but now I will go and wake him up."
12The disciples said, "Lord, if he is sleeping, that means he is getting better!" 13They thought Jesus meant Lazarus was having a good night's rest, but Jesus meant Lazarus had died.
14Then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. 15And for your sake, I am glad I wasn't there, because this will give you another opportunity to believe in me. Come, let's go see him."
16Thomas, nicknamed the Twin, F49 said to his fellow disciples, "Let's go, too—and die with Jesus."
17When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. 18Bethany was only a few miles F50 down the road from Jerusalem, 19and many of the people F51 had come to pay their respects and console Martha and Mary on their loss. 20When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask."
23Jesus told her, "Your brother will rise again."
24"Yes," Martha said, "when everyone else rises, on resurrection day."
25Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. F52 Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. 26They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish. Do you believe this, Martha?"
27"Yes, Lord," she told him. "I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God." 28Then she left him and returned to Mary. She called Mary aside from the mourners and told her, "The Teacher is here and wants to see you." 29So Mary immediately went to him.
30Now Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met him. 31When the people who were at the house trying to console Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus's grave to weep. So they followed her there. 32When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell down at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
33When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, he was moved with indignation and was deeply troubled. 34"Where have you put him?" he asked them. They told him, "Lord, come and see." 35Then Jesus wept. 36The people who were standing nearby said, "See how much he loved him." 37But some said, "This man healed a blind man. Why couldn't he keep Lazarus from dying?"
Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead
38And again Jesus was deeply troubled. Then they came to the grave. It was a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. 39"Roll the stone aside," Jesus told them. But Martha, the dead man's sister, said, "Lord, by now the smell will be terrible because he has been dead for four days."
40Jesus responded, "Didn't I tell you that you will see God's glory if you believe?" 41So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father, thank you for hearing me. 42You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so they will believe you sent me." 43Then Jesus shouted, "Lazarus, come out!" 44And Lazarus came out, bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told them, "Unwrap him and let him go!"
The Plot to Kill Jesus
45Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen. 46But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council F53 together to discuss the situation. "What are we going to do?" they asked each other. "This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. 48If we leave him alone, the whole nation will follow him, and then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation."
49And one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, "How can you be so stupid? 50Why should the whole nation be destroyed? Let this one man die for the people."
51This prophecy that Jesus should die for the entire nation came from Caiaphas in his position as high priest. He didn't think of it himself; he was inspired to say it. 52It was a prediction that Jesus' death would be not for Israel only, but for the gathering together of all the children of God scattered around the world.
53So from that time on the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus' death. 54As a result, Jesus stopped his public ministry among the people and left Jerusalem. He went to a place near the wilderness, to the village of Ephraim, and stayed there with his disciples.
55It was now almost time for the celebration of Passover, and many people from the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early so they could go through the cleansing ceremony before the Passover began. 56They wanted to see Jesus, and as they talked in the Temple, they asked each other, "What do you think? Will he come for the Passover?" 57Meanwhile, the leading priests and Pharisees had publicly announced that anyone seeing Jesus must report him immediately so they could arrest him.

FOOTNOTES:
F48: This incident is recorded in chapter 12.
F49: Greek the one who was called Didymus.
F50: Greek was about 15 stadia [about 2.8 kilometers].
F51: Greek Jewish people; also 11:31, 33, 36, 45, 54.
F52: Some manuscripts do not include and the life.
F53: Greek the Sanhedrin.

Lena’s Journals to John 11 Today
This passage of scripture is so key to understanding death and life. In understanding the difference between natural and spiritual death, and natural and spiritual life.
The way Jesus handled all of the comments made, were based on the eternal security He knew. They were spoken the way He spoke them, because of what He knew, and beyond a shadow of a doubt, because He was relational with God His Father the Creator of the whole deal, He could be at peace when it seemed an end was there and the impossible raised its head.
People in that day said, and still say, why didn’t God, or why did not Jesus do this or that? Why did He wait, or today they may say something like, why didn’t the pastor come right away? They blame death or life and the quality of it in the here and now in a shallow perception of situations.
There is always a HUGE picture we all may only have one small glimpse of. In fact, even today in reading this scripture, one may not see the big picture with the same trust and reliance Jesus based His faith on.
This is why we read it today to see if we can at all grab it with our faith and learn from it personally.
Jesus seemed to speak in riddles. Why’d He do this? Because faith is very important and so are words spoken. God gave each of us a mouth to speak. His will is that we’d speak as He’d speak, and with our words create as He creates, and change our present day world and the circumstances that threaten it.
Jesus did not want to say what is, Jesus desired to speak what would be, through creative and responsive words of faith.
What was, was Lazarus was ill, even unto death. Jesus came to give life, not agree with the threats of death. In bringing life, life would need to be created with words, no matter what anything else looked like. The impossible would be made possible through God’s words coming out of human mouths!
Speaking as God does is practically a miracle for humanity in our day, because of the way we so cheaply spend our God-given words, we use them as though we do not believe or as though we do not know they are powerful and have creative merit.
Have you ever said to Jesus, Lord, the one (I believe) You (say You) love, is quite ill, so much so that it may even be unto death? What was being said in that? I believe we’ve been very hopeful, very wishful that Jesus would choose us and our loved ones to love, to grant a miracle to, as though miracles are magically given to the ones He, so called, loves. I think we have been deceived into thinking maybe God will give us specific favor and grant us, or our loved ones’, life if He is really Love, as people say He is. I hear all of the time the words, IF God is God, or IF God loved us why’d this or that happen to us? It’s like we use what happens after we pray that prayer to gage whether we’ll serve or believe in God or not, and whether we really feel His love for our specific family or not. Faith and wishes are NOT the same. God is not randomly choosing certain people to bless. He looks through out the earth to see who will live by faith in Him. Faith pleases God. Wishes do not. They do nothing.
Living wishfully just does not work in God’s kingdom order. The Lord already gave to each of us an offer, we must accept or reject. We accept or reject the offer to walk by faith in Him, and not by what we see. He gave each of us an offer to create a world different than the one we currently live in, through words of faith that agree with what He’s set out for us to grab a hold of.
Do not allow your heart or mind to be deceived, He does love us, He does love our family members. This is why he paid the price He did for sin, and this is why He gives us the offers we have received. The question is, how much do we believe that no matter what happens, and do we love Him enough in return to believe it and stand by it, no matter the other offers that come our way, not to?
Life here is a test of faith. Faith works. It believes God at His words and then responds with action on the words of God, It comes into agreement with the words of God even when it is the most impossible thing on all the earth to do. It pulls out of the unseen realm heaven’s wishes, by creative faith filled God agreeing words. It brings heaven to earth, by active lifestyle participation based upon faith in God.
When Jesus said Lazarus is sleeping, He was offering something for the disciples to agree with Him on. Not what was seemingly truth, but that which would be truth, as willed by God. When Jesus said, he will rise again, He was offering Mary something to sink her faith into and what to act upon to become powerful in the earth by agreeing with the very words of God!
These were lessons for us today to learn by.
Ok now, there’s that question of practicality that comes up from the human mind. What if I try that and it doesn’t work? What if I do all the “right things” and my family member isn’t made better?
What if? The question is about you now. What will happen to you? Will you turn away from, or run closer to God who is still your Father? Is God’s word still true, even if it looks like it didn’t work out for your situation this time? Will this situation be able to take you away from God’s destined purposes for your life? Will this test of faith kill yours off? Is your faith shallow or deep?
There is earth life and eternal life, which is the most important? To you?
Jesus cried- wept, why?
There was another passage where He wept also, over unbelief. God sent His Son to make more sons who live by faith in what they do not yet see, and who will stand until they see it, by bringing it out into the seen world from the unseen world. If your plan depended upon certain ones, how would you, in God’s position feel, if the very ones you offered the plan to, refused to work it?
Seeing through big picture eyes, in the spirit, it could be a grievous thing.
This is what life here is all about, no matter how much of it we personally get to live.
"I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish. Do you believe this, _____________?"
Then it says :
And again Jesus was deeply troubled. (He says to the one the offer was made to live by faith both now and later on to) - Didn't I tell you that you will see God's glory if you believe?"
Jesus died that everyone in the world could believe in Him and walk a life of faith now. He died to offer that life, one that sees what others do not yet see, and one that agrees with God until what God desires to be seen appears here. The offer is made to anyone who would believe and receive that life, living it to its fullest.
The timing of His death in His day was at the Passover, for He willingly offered Himself up as the sacrifice Lamb before His Father. He was here to tell God he believed enough to give His whole life up for who His Father loved with corresponding actions. Even if in His day it appeared no one really believed yet, His death would be a response to faith in the prophetic act that would bring the birthing of many kingdom of God believer, disciples in the whole earth. It would birth many sons and daughters in the earth who would willingly choose to walk as He walked, and speak as He spoke in agreement with His Father.
One must see there is so much more than the life we now see, and that the life we now see is all about the life we do not yet see.
That makes it easier to want to live this way, share this with who we love and let someone we love go on to that next place, if we believe in eternity.