Mark 15:21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was pass-ing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. 22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). 23 Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. 25 It was the third hour when they crucified him. 26 The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27 They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. 28 29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to de-stroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!" 31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! 32 Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. 33 At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Introduction
What Is a Savior?
The Bible is full of promises that God will deliver you from trouble. God is our pro-tector, our refuge, our shelter, our deliverer, our savior.
Psalm 50:15 Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you.
That’s how it’s supposed to work. But can you really count on that promise? Why are there so many times when you call out in the day of trouble and he doesn’t deliver you? You beg God for help, and things only get worse?
We understand that there are times when God has to allow a hardship to continue for various reasons. But so often that seems to be the rule rather than the exception. God said to call on him in the day of trouble and he would rescue us, but if he only answers that prayer 10% of the time, how can we take comfort in those promises of deliverance? What does it mean, exactly, when God says he is our savior?
In the crucifixion account, Mark is teaching us all about exactly who Jesus is to us. In the trials, Mark said, “Here, let me introduce you to Jesus the prophet.” Then Jesus the Messiah. Then Jesus the Son of God. And then last week, Jesus the King. Now one more. After Jesus is put up on the cross, Mark says, “Let me introduce you to Jesus the Savior.” And he’s going to teach us some things about our concept of saving and God’s concept of saving.
At Golgotha
The Skull
We left off last time with Simon carrying the cross, which was a walking parable of what it looks like to be a Christian.
22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull).
That’s where you have to go if you follow Jesus—the place of the skull. And you don’t need a Bible background encyclopedia to know what that means. Skulls have to do with death. Pirates flew skull and crossbones flags as a symbol of terror. We use it to warn about deadly poison. People use skull decorations on Halloween, when the objective is to scare people. No matter what century you’re in or what culture you’re in, it’s a symbol of death. So they take Jesus to the skull and crossbones place—a place of death, execution, and for the Jew, the worst kind of uncleanness.
By the way, Golgotha is Aramaic. The Greek word is kranion, and the Latin transla-tion is Calvary. We use the Latin word more than the Aramaic because of our songs. Cal-vary rhymes with a lot more words than Golgotha. And Calvary Church sounds a little more inviting than Golgotha Church. But that word really isn’t supposed to sound inviting. It should sound terrifying.
There are traditions on the location of Golgotha, but we don’t know where it was. All we know is it was along a busy roadway and was outside the city gate.
Outside the Camp
And Mark says they led him “out” there. That’s significant because if you look up the phrase “outside the camp,” it comes up 26 times in Exodus through Deuteronomy. God gave a lot of regulations about how defiling things had to be taken outside the camp so the living space of the people wouldn’t be defiled. And all that was put in place to ultimately teach us something about the death of Jesus.
Hebrews 13:11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.
Again, we’re back to this concept of disgrace. Think of it. The Holy One himself has to be taken outside the gates so that the city won’t be defiled by him. He’s about to become a corpse. The spotless lamb of God—the only human being in history who could touch a leper and instead of Jesus becoming defiled, the leper became clean. The un-defilable healer is about to become such a defiling contamination that he has to be taken outside the city limits lest he contaminate the whole city. What could be more of a disgrace than that?
And as we saw modeled in the living parable of Simon carrying the cross, we’re called to join Jesus outside the camp in his humiliation. He bore our deserved shame and in turn, we bear his undeserved shame. We no longer have to carry the guilt of past sin, but we must carry the humiliation and scorn the world heaps on Jesus and all those connected to him.
Waiting for the Kingdom
23 Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh , but he did not take it.
Wine flavored with myrrh was a delicacy. Mark doesn’t say why they offered that—whether it was sympathetic bystanders, or the soldiers continuing their mockery—giving him wine fit for a king. Mark doesn’t tell us their motive. What he does give us is a verbal link to something Jesus said the night before.
Mark 14:25 I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.
Jesus will drink fine wine again after he is installed as the King of kings by God the Father. This is Jesus trusting in the plan of God. He will be King soon enough. He’ll be able to eat and drink like a king soon enough. He doesn’t need any lame, human imitation of it now.
This is exactly what the Bible means by waiting on the Lord. You wait however long it takes to get what God promised in God’s timing and in God’s way instead of settling for a cheap substitute.
The Crucifixion
So they offer him wine, he refuses it, and then we get the whole description of the ac-tual crucifixion—in two Greek words.
24 they crucified him.
These are the only words you’ll find about the actual nailing of Jesus to the cross. It’s almost awkward how flat the reports of the crucifixion are. Zero emotionalism. No de-scription at all—just a passing reference—they crucified him. The Holy Spirit doesn’t want us focusing on the physical part they want us to focus on the part that mattered the most—his humiliation. And that keeps going in v.14.
Clothes Scavenged
14 … Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.
The fact that they’re fighting over his clothes means he’s up there naked, displayed along a busy highway. When they’re dividing up your clothes, the obvious implication is you won’t be needing them anymore. It’s just another way of rubbing it in—your life is over. You’re going nowhere from here except into the ground.
This is the third time Jesus’ clothes are mentioned in the gospel. The other two times his clothes were amazing. In ch.6 everyone who touched Jesus’ clothes was healed. At the Transfiguration his clothes lit up and became too bright to look at, shining like the sun. But here his clothes are just a pile of fabric scavenged by the soldiers. It shows that the spectacular qualities of his clothes earlier came from Jesus’ own glory. The moment you take Jesus’ clothes off Jesus, they’re just rags.
People who are into religious relics could learn from this. If archeologists somehow found the robe Jesus wore, or a cup he drank from or anything else, or a splinter of the cross, it would mean nothing. The glory is from Christ himself. We shouldn’t be concerned about relics when we have access to Christ himself.
This is such a surreal scene. The most important event in all human history is taking place right next to them, and they have their backs to it, focused on some old clothes. Missing the greatest event ever because of the smallest of trivia. Isn’t that the story of our lives so often? How many really important things do we miss because we’re caught up in our daily routines and temporal minutia that won’t even matter a month from now?
The gambling for the clothes incident is a reference to Psalm 22.
Psalm 22:18 They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.
That’s the first of several references to Psalm 22 in the crucifixion account. Later Je-sus will quote from Psalm 22 when he says, “My God why have you forsaken me?” And there are several other references in this account to Psalm 22 as well. Mark paints this whole scene for us in the lingo of Psalm 22. We’ll have to wait until next time to look into why that is, but it does end up being important, so just keep it in mind for now.
Third Hour
25 It was the third hour when they crucified him.
The third hour was half way between sunrise and noon, so think 9 am. Mark has never once referred to the time of day throughout his whole gospel. But here he mentions the third hour, then in v.33 he mentions the 6th hour, then the 9th hour. Then evening, which is the 12th hour. Why the sudden interest in the clock, Mark? Did you get a new watch for your birthday or what?
He never mentions the time of day, but this day he gives us constant time markers in three hour intervals covering the whole day. What he’s doing is showing us the events of the crucifixion unfolding like clockwork. The details of Jesus’ sacrifice tick off one-by-one on a perfectly timed divine schedule. It’s not haphazard, random, out-of-control sin-ners running unchecked. Everything is by divine appointment and plays out exactly ac-cording to plan.
That’s not to say God is forcing anyone to act. On the human side, the crucifixion was carried out by evil men who are culpable and subject to divine wrath for what they did be-cause they did it by their own free will. And yet God was still in control carrying out his purposes to the letter.
Acts 4:27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Is-rael in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
The Hour of Judgment
One other reason Mark may be repeating the word “hour” in this chapter might be to remind us that this is the hour Jesus prayed about in Gethsemane?
Mark 14:35 … he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.
41 … The hour has come.
This is that hour of testing.
Final Round of Mockery
Another Round of Mocking
So at 9 am they nail Jesus to the cross, scavenge for his clothes, and for the next three hours, one thing happens—mockery. A whole other round of mockery. All the way down to verse 33. You might be thinking, “Again? How many messages do we have to sit through on the topic of Jesus being mocked?” Don’t look at me. Talk to Mark. This is how he laid it out. This is what the Holy Spirit wants our attention on verse after verse after verse.
Written Notice
It starts with the sign over Jesus’ head.
26 The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS.
That’s Pilate mocking both Jesus and the Jews. And for Mark’s purposes, it’s just one more opportunity to show the truth through irony. It’s the correct charge. Jesus did indeed die because he actually was the king of the Jews. That is why Jesus had to die. The only way for the Jews and the rest of the world to be saved was for a king to come and lay down his life for them. So once again what’s intended as mockery is the truth—right on the nose.
Two Robbers
27 They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.
When they set up the three crosses that way they have no idea that they are construct-ing the most iconic scene of all human history. There’s no symbol more instantly recog-nizable throughout the world than those three crosses. What they do know is that they are grouping Jesus in with evil men. These aren’t just robbers. They didn’t crucify people for robbery. The Greek word can refer to a range of crimes. Most capital crimes didn’t even call for crucifixion, so what they did must have been pretty bad. And Jesus is lumped in with them, which is a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:12.
Isaiah 53:12 … he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Part of bearing the sins of many required that he suffer the indignity of being thought of as one of the criminals. This is like having your mug shot on TV beside a couple child molesters. And now everyone thinks you’re one of them when in reality all you did was rescue children from molesters. Humiliation upon humiliation in the death of Jesus.
Mockery of the Criminals
And not only are the priests and the guards and the Romans and the bystanders all mocking Jesus, even those criminals get in on it.
32 … Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
That’s really something. When you’re pressed down so low that even two criminals who are hanging naked on poles… , dying for their crimes in front of everyone on a busy road—when even men like that are punching down on you, you’ve really hit rock bottom. You can’t get any lower than that in society, but somehow Jesus manages to get even lower than them.
The mockery is comprehensive. The Jewish officials, the Temple police, the guards, Pilate, the Roman soldiers, random travelers, even the criminals next to him. Ridicule comes from absolutely every direction.
The Right and Left
But there’s something else that stands out about the criminals. Sometimes when you memorize a passage, things stand out that you don’t notice just reading it. What stood out to me here is how wordy Mark gets at this point. He’s normally very succinct, and you would expect him to just say Jesus was crucified between two criminals. That would de-scribe what happened. But listen to all the verbiage.
27 They crucified two criminals with him, one on his right and one on his left.
If Jesus is between them, then obviously there’s one on each side. But Mark isn’t even content to say “one on each side.” He spells it out, “one on his right and one on his left.” What’s the significance of the right and left? Does that wording ring any bells from the context?
Mark 10:35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, … 37 "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory."
And what did Jesus say?
Mark 10:38 "You don't know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I drink?"
If you want to ride the coattails of Jesus’ glory like we talked about last time, you first have to ride the coattails of his suffering and humiliation and death. And so these two criminals hang there as another living parable. Simon was living parable of what it looks like to follow Jesus. The criminals are a living parable of what the path to greatness is the kingdom looks like. It’s like Jesus could look at one of those criminals, then look at the other, then ask James and John, “Do you still want to be on my right and left? Because this is what it will look like.”
Bystanders
So let’s back up and look at the bystanders’ mockery.
29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads.
Shaking Heads
It’s amazing how demeaning it can be to have someone shake their head at you be-cause it’s like they’re saying they can’t even understand how you could be so lame. If you trip and fall and they laugh, that’s embarrassing. But if they shake their head, that’s worse. If they just laugh, they might be thinking, “That was funny. Glad it wasn’t me this time.” But if they shake their head and roll their eyes, it’s like they’re saying, “How is it even possible for anyone to be so stupid?” These people shook their heads at Jesus. They couldn’t comprehend how someone could be so ridiculous and pathetic.
This is another reference to Psalm 22. The first one was the gambling for the clothes in Psalm 22:18. Now this from Psalm 22:7.
Psalm 22:7 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
Come Down, Temple Builder
And here’s what they say:
29 … "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!"
The current temple had taken 46 years to build and it still wasn’t done. They’re say-ing, “If you have so much miraculous power that you could build the Temple in 3 days… , surely you have enough power to come down from the cross and save yourself.”
Jesus never actually said he would destroy the Temple. That was one of the unproved accusations from the first trial. And he never was convicted on that. The charge they final-ly landed on was blasphemy. And yet this is the thing the crowd remembers. That’s the way false accusations are. Even after they are proven wrong, people continue to believe them. That’s part of the unfairness of what Jesus went through.
What did Jesus say? He said they would destroy “this temple” and he would rebuild it in three days. And he temple he was talking about was his body. He was saying, “You peo-ple will destroy the temple of my body and after 3 days I’ll raise it up.” And that was ex-actly what was happening. They’re mocking him over a prophecy he made that was being fulfilled as they mocked him.
But on the other hand, even if Jesus didn’t directly say he would destroy the Jewish Temple, he did prophesy that it would be destroyed. He said not one stone would be left on another. Sounded ridiculous at the time, but for us looking back, which temple still stands? The structure in Jerusalem, or Jesus Christ and his Church? His prophecy proved true at every point.
Mocked as Savior
But the main point here is that they are mocking Jesus as savior. First they mocked him as prophet, then as king, now, they mock his ability to save because he can’t even save himself. The bystanders: verse 30 … “Save yourself!" The priests: verse 31 … "He saved others, but he can't save himself!" Then the two criminals say the same thing. It’s all about Jesus’ inability to save himself.
Self-Justification
Why are they focusing on that? It’s because they’re trying to justify their unbelief.
32 Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and be-lieve.
They’re claiming they would believe if he came down, which means as long as he doesn’t come down, they think they’re justified in not believing. And it’s important to them that they justify what they’re doing because when you do something this wicked… , no matter how far gone you are, at some point your conscience is going to act up at least a little bit. Some kind of nagging feelings of, “Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this.” They had seen Jesus’ kindness, they had heard his amazing teaching, they’d seen the miracles. You know they must have had a few stray thoughts about, “What if he really were from God—and I’m doing this to him?”
Whenever conscience lights up, you have two options. Let it do its work and drive you to repentance, or set your mind at ease by proving that what you’re doing is justified. What if Jesus really is from God? It can’t be. Here, I’ll prove it … “Hey Jesus, if you’re who you say you are, come down off the cross.” And then you watch. And he doesn’t come down. (Sign of relief) See. I knew he was a fraud. Even God has endorsed our side by not rescuing Jesus.
God Wouldn’t …
They’re operating on the assumption that God would never let something like this happen to his Messiah , and the Messiah would never allow something like this to happen to himself. Be very, very careful with the logic that says, “I know X isn’t true because God would never …” Beware of the phrase, “God would never.” You have to know someone awfully well to know everything that person would never do. And yet it’s amazing how much confidence people have in their theories of what God would never do.
That’s really the whole argument of the atheists. God would never create a world like this or allow such and such to happen, therefore there is no God. And they’re willing to risk their eternal destiny on that one line of reasoning, as if a limited, finite , sinful crea-ture could ever say with any certainty what an eternal, all-knowing, perfect being would or wouldn’t do.
The Voice of Satan
So they’re all heckling Jesus, telling him, “If you’re really the Messiah, don’t die on the cross.” Boy, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Where have we heard that before? When Peter said it, what did Jesus call him? Satan.
This has been Satan’s objective from the beginning. In all Jesus’ temptations at the outset of his ministry and ever since right up to the Garden of Gethsemane , Satan has done everything he could possibly do to prevent Jesus from dying on the cross. Those songs that say the powers of hell rejoiced when Jesus died are wrong. Jesus dying on the cross was the absolute worst case scenario for Satan and he knew it. And so he never gave up in try-ing to prevent it. Even after Jesus had been nailed to the cross and was hanging there dy-ing, still Satan didn’t give up hope. He knows Jesus has the power to put a stop to this and come down, and so he’s still trying to push him to do that.
The first round of mockery came from the Jewish leaders. Then the guards. Then Pi-late. Then the Roman soldiers. But this final round of mockery—who is that coming from? First it’s the bystanders, but then it’s the Jewish leaders again, then the two criminals. But really they’re all speaking with one voice. And if you’ve been reading Mark, you know that voice by now. It’s the voice of Satan.
Saving or Losing Your
And think about what they’re asking Jesus to do. It’s not like they’re just asking for a random miracle. They’re asking Jesus to repudiate the very core of his teaching about sal-vation. Look at the words they use.
30 … save yourself!
31 … he can't save himself!
They want Jesus to save his life. What did Jesus teach about saving your life?
Mark 8:35 Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life … for the gospel will save it.
There are just two paths you can take—try to save your life in this world or lose your life for the gospel. Jesus’ whole message was, “Don’t try to save your life in this world. Lay it down and only then will you gain true life. Don’t avoid the cross—take up your cross.” That’s Jesus’ message. And what they’re saying here is, “Jesus, if you want us to believe in you, we’re not asking much. All we ask is that you do the opposite of what you taught, give up on God’s way and embrace the way of the world. Don’t take up your cross and lay down your life. Get off the cross and save your life. Then we’ll believe in you.”
Irony
And to goad him into doing that, look what the chief priests say.
31 … he saved others but he can't save himself!
Now we’re back to the irony. Once again, what they say as mockery ends up being a perfect description of what was really true. What they said is exactly right—Jesus couldn’t save himself and save others. Not for lack of power. He had the power to come down. One exercise of his will and the cross would be splinters and the executioners and mockers would all be lying dead on road. They think Jesus lacks the power to rip those nails out of the cross? He could snap them like toothpicks. It wasn’t the nails that held him up there; it was his love. He couldn’t save himself because if he did, all of humanity would be lost.
At this point Jesus could have spoken up and said, “Okay, one more time. The only way to truly save your life is to lose it. We’ve been over this. Try to keep up.” But Jesus makes no effort to defend himself or even to get the last word. He is there to suffer humili-ation, and he doesn’t do anything to mitigate that. He just lets it happen, full force.
Their Salvation, not His
And when they keep telling him to save himself, what they fail to realize is it was them, not him, who needed saving. And the only hope for them to be saved was to believe. And they claimed they would believe if he did what they said.
32 Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and be-lieve.
If we saw what we want to see, then we would see and believe. And God says, “You can see and believe right now. But you need to believe what you’re actually seeing, not what you would rather see.” What they were seeing was prophecy being fulfilled before their eyes. All the evidence and proof they needed to believe was unfolding right in front of them. But instead, as the Son of God dies on the cross, they stand there and watch with eyes that see nothing.
Of all the miracles they could have asked for, the one they claim would put them over the top was really a relatively small-time miracle. Compared to all the other things Jesus had done, coming down off the cross would have ranked among the least impressive dis-plays of power. They claim they would believe if he would do that tiny miracle , but what Jesus is doing instead is the greatest miracle imaginable—reconciling sinful humanity to God! Staggering! But that’s utterly unimpressive to them because it has to do with the big world, not their little world.
What Would They Believe?
Is it true that they would believe if they saw Jesus come down from the cross? Oh yeah, they would believe all right. They would believe exactly the same thing they already believed.
What was that? What they believed was that this little here-and-now life is what mat-ters most. And if it’s a choice between our little here-and-now kingdom and the kingdom of God, that’s easy—it’s our kingdom. What did they believe about greatness? Is the true path to greatness the one Jesus taught?
• Lay down your life
• Humble yourself
• Be a servant
• Forfeit everything in this world including greatness in the eyes of men and let God lift you up in his time?
Or just seek greatness in the eyes of men and give no thought to whether or not you have God’s approval? Easy—human greatness. That was what they believed. It’s all about saving yourself.
And it’s all about this world, not the kingdom of God. In their mind, the Messiah’s job was to defeat Rome and give Israel her independence. Rescue Israel from Roman oppres-sion. So Jesus says, “I’m the rescuer” but he’s being executed by Rome? To quote Princess Leia, “This is some rescue.” A messiah who can’t even protect himself against Rome isn’t much good for delivering the whole nation.
And so when they say, “Jesus, save yourself and we’ll believe,” what they’re saying is, “Stop doing this your way and do it our way. Save yourself like we would save ourselves if we had the power. Then we’ll accept you as the leader of our kingdom.”
So yes, they would believe what they already believed. What they wouldn’t do is actu-ally believe Jesus. They saw all the miracles he had already done and it didn’t even put a dent in their unbelief, one more miracle wouldn’t either. And we know that because when Jesus rises from the dead, not even that convinces them. And that’s a far greater miracle than climbing down off a cross.
“Now”
If you think about it, really the only thing wrong with their statement is one word—the word “now.”
32 Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and be-lieve.
Jesus would come down from the cross. God did rescue Jesus from the cross in mirac-ulous fashion. What they’re asking for is exactly what God already had in mind; the only thing off is the word “now.”
“Now” is not a demand we get to make when we’re telling God whether we’ll believe or not. Think of the insanity of telling God, “Do it now or I won’t believe.” That’s like your doctor saying, “I have medicine that will save your life. It will be here in three days,” and you say, “No! If I don’t get it right now I’m going to slit my throat.” Their refusal to believe doesn’t hurt Jesus; it hurts them. How irrational is it to refuse the only thing that can save your life just because you don’t get what you want right now?
When God provides evidence for his Word and people say, “No God. Not that evi-dence. I demand different evidence. Not the resurrection of Jesus 2000 years ago—I want this other kind of proof, otherwise I refuse to believe” —what those people don’t realize is, God is not desperate to get them to believe. He’s offering them a gift. And part of the gift is the form God offers it. If it were in another form, it wouldn’t be as great a gift. So when we say, “I refuse it in that form,” God says, “Well then, you refuse it.” And it’s the unbe-liever, not God, who loses.
Conclusion: Save us our way
This final round of mocking really gets to the crux of the issue—salvation. Back to my question at the beginning—when God came to save the human race, why did the human race reject that salvation? It sounds like the most unlikely storyline imaginable. Why would someone who is in deep trouble reject his rescuer?
It turns out human beings, no matter how much trouble we’re in, can be very picky about how we want to be rescued. Rescue us our way, or not at all.
That’s how we roll as human beings—both with big rescues and little ones. When you pray to God for help, what stipulations do you place on how God has to do it? It’s not an easy question because most of the time those stipulations are subconscious. We always have our own ideas of what the solutions to our problems are. We ask God for that, and when he gives a different solution, we don’t see it as a solution. In fact, many times we see it as an even worse problem than the original problem. It’s like when you go to the dentist and say, “I know what I need. Just give me some narcotics for this pain.” And he says, “How about a root canal?”
“That’s not what I had in mind doc.”
“Well, that’s what you need. If you want to get better, you need to change what you had in mind.”
Why is it that so often when we cry out to God for help it doesn’t seem to come? Why does it seem like God only answers that prayer 10% of the time? Could it be because about 90% of the time when we pray for deliverance we have the wrong definition of deliverance? Think about the last few times you’ve prayed for help and didn’t get it. Could it be God rescued you his way and you didn’t even know it?
Jesus is the Savior. But he saves his way, not our way. And his way is the way of the cross. His way is the way of laying down your life to save it. And of forfeiting human approval to gain God’s approval. Maybe we would do well, when we pray for help, to say, “God rescue from this trouble. And teach me what rescuing really means so when you do it, I will see and believe. Or better yet, believe that I might see.”
