It's Just Not About You!....

"Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her
sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and
wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore the
sisters sent to Him saying, 'Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.' When
Jesus heard that, He said, 'This sickness is not unto death, but for the
glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.' Now Jesus
loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick,
He stayed two more days in the place where He was. Then after this he said
to the disciples, 'Let us go to Judea again.'"(John 11: 1-7 NKJV)

I was astounded the first time I read this scripture! Jesus says that he
loved these people and then He tells His disciples that he is just going to
stay where He is for a couple of days. Wow, now that's being cool and
insensitive! How could He do that? And when Jesus did arrive, Lazarus was
dead and Martha came up to him and pretty much said the same thing I just
did. But Martha and I were only looking at it from our side. Ever hear the
expression, "There are always two sides to every story"? What Jesus did was
wrapped in the very Christian principles that He was sent here to teach us
all. He was about His Father's business. Remember He said in the scripture
that I gave you that this entire event was for "the glory of God, so that
the Son of God may be glorified through it"? Let's look at this a little
closer.

Jesus came that all the people of that time and we "Might have life and have
it more abundently".(John 10:10 NKJV) Jesus, during His time on earth,
especially during the time of His ministry, was always telling everyone that
He was about His Father's business. Everything that Jesus did was to
glorify the Father and not Himself. And yet some people of that time,
especially the Scribes and Pharisees, could not see past the man and their
own agenda no matter what Jesus said or did. He spoke of love and of
compassion and how to lead a life pleasing to the Father. He tried to show
the love and almighty power of the Father through the miracles that God
performed through Him. He tried to point out that earth was created for a
purpose. God had created it to be the Kingdom of Heaven extended to earth.
He was here to be the final sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin forever.
He was here to breach the gap between man and his creator God, that had
occurred with the fall of Adam and Eve. He came so that each and every one
of them and we could speak directly to the Father again without
bloodletting. He came so that His blood would be the final and most
powerful sacrifice of blood ever. When Jesus performed miracles, it was by
the power of God working through Him. And Jesus always gave glory to the
Father for the miracles. And yet the Scribes and Pharisees arranged to
have Him put to death because they feared that the changes that Jesus was
talking about would put them out of business. And they were jealous that
the God that they had served and spoken of for all their lives was not
working through them. They knew that they had control over the people by
using the Word of God as a means of control. They became drunk with their
own power and God had become a means to an end for them. The people of that
time were under Roman rule. And they had been excited at first by the
coming of the long awaited Messiah because they thought that He had come to
help them rise up and free them from their oppressors. They missed the
point of His coming entirely. They missed the fact that He had come to
assure their "eternal" well being and not their current physical lives that
were temporary. And yet they would have had that also, if they had only
embraced His teachings and brought the power of heaven to earth and took
authority over the spiritual realm that was the basis for their oppression.
All of Jesus' parables and teachings spoke of this and yet they continued to
miss the point as we still do to this day. So the cry of the people was
added to that of the Scribes and the Pharisees as they called for the death
sentence for Christ. All the Scribes and Pharisees could see was their job
security and all the people could see was their oppression. Martha missed
the point too. If Jesus had showed up when she wanted Him to and Lazarus
had not died, they would have credited Jesus' presence for his recovery.
However, when Lazarus was brought back to life by the only One who had
control over death, our Father God, then only He would be glorified. And in
turn Jesus would be glorified by God's working through Him. And that is
exactly what Jesus said. He could not cure nor raise Lazarus from the grave
without the power and grace of the Father. However all that Martha knew was
that she wanted her brother back. She was close to Jesus, and she loved Him
like a brother and yet she just missed the point and purpose of His life
here on earth.

The biggest miracle that Jesus performed while here on earth was to die.
His entire life was an explanation for why He came for us. And yet to this
very day so many are still missing the point. We can just go through life
making it all about the flesh and our needs and continue to fall short of
purpose we were created for. By Jesus' death and resurrection we have
authority over the Kingdom of Heaven right here on earth. We have authority
through Christ Jesus over the enemy. We have a spiritual connection with
our Heavenly Father and all the power that it provides if we would only tap
into it. And the purpose of our lives here is to follow in the footsteps of
our Savior, Jesus Christ. We are to strive to be like Him so we can lead
others back to the Father through His precious blood sacrifice. We must be
about our Father's business and not our own. So every morning get up and
thank Him for another day and let Him know that you realize what your other
job, your most important job, is here on earth. Thank Him for your
salvation through the sacrifice of His only and precious Son. And let Him
know that you now realize that it's just not about YOU.....Patti