This May be the death of Me, But it won’t be the end of me.
John11:16
Just Because He (Jesus) Loves Me
Day #2
In our text Mary and Martha’s her brother dies. She is completely devastated both her and her sister for they had indeed sent word to Jesus but He was unable to get there before Lazarus died. The bible says that When Jesus got there Lazarus had been dead for 4 days which means that He had been dead most likely even before Jesus physically received the message. I say physically because how many of you know that He already knew.
Look at your neighbor and tell them:
God’s Time is not our Time
Many times we may find ourselves at road blocks. It may be that we are at a stand still but just because we are at a stand still does not mean that time has stood still. No God’s timing continues on continuing to carry out His divine purpose in our lives.
When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick notice that the scripture says in verse 5 that He loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus and therefore He lingered for two more days. I know it’s hard for us to believe sometimes that God loves us when we consider the times in our lives when He didn’t see fit to intervene when some very traumatic things have happened in our lives.
• the day you find out that your child is doing drugs,
• Your little girl is pregnant,
• Husband or you wife has been unfaithful,
• Doctor said you have cancer.
But I have come to give you a new perspective on these matters. That maybe the reason God didn’t intervene was Just because He loves you. This kind of love is not foreign to us we know it by the term “Tough Love”. Yes that’s that love that parents or grandma used to tell us was the love that they were showing when they didn’t give us everything that we wanted at the time that we wanted it. It was the Love they demonstrated toward us when they were disciplining us. It was the love they demonstrated when they finally told some of us that stayed a little longer than most, it’s time for you to get of our house and go get your own and they sang the Papa may have and the Mamma may have but God bless the child that’s got his own” song to you as they were packing your things.
Yes it’s the kind of love that’s hard for us to comprehend in our earlier stages of development as we are growing and changing but a love that we eventually learn to understand when we finally reach a certain level of maturity.
If we want to reach a level of maturity that pleases God we must first realize that we must accept what God allows to happen in our lives even when they are not our idea of what He should and should not let happen. Paul understood this principle and realized that if He were going to get a better understanding of who God is and How He operates, He had to let go of his prior worldly knowledge of who He was and so that he could finally make some progress. He says in
Philippians 3:7-10
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Phl 3:8
Yea doubtless, and I count all things [but] loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them [but] dung, that I may win Christ,
Phl 3:9
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
Phl 3:10
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
Listen, if we are going to understand God one thing that tends to hold us back from drawing closer to Him is that fact that our ideas of what love is differs from His. Some of us have been scarred from our past and we hold God responsible for it whether we were right or wrong. We just believe that if He loved us He would not have allowed certain things to have happened to me in my life.
But God sent me to tell you tonight first and foremost let’s get something straight. You can’t spell love without spelling the name JESUS. For God so loved this world, that He sacrificed that very best Heaven itself had to offer (His son), even while you were in your trespasses and sin, when you didn’t want me, but I pursued you like a loving Father. I did not let you go. I watched over you, I protected you. Even while some of us were out in the world and some of us still are. God says it’s been me that has been keeping you alive.
I am the one responsible for not allowing the bullet to hit you the car crash to take your life, the thief to break in and steal. And for those of you who these things have happened to first of all there are two categories of people these things happen to and they are interchangeable. Meaning all of us can find ourselves in either one of these categories throughout our lives. The first category is “Consequences” some of you, the reason those things happened to you was because of your own doing.
1. You didn’t pay your rent and they evicted you even after you went to prayer meeting and bible study. God said I had to let it happen. Because then you wouldn’t have learned how to be more responsible the next time.
2. You got let go from the job because of laziness God said I am a God of my word and my word says. If you don’t work, you don’t eat.
3. You married someone that you knew did not have a relationship with me and now the honeymoon is over and you don’t know why.
When I was there doing everything I could to let you know that what you were doing was wrong and you didn’t listen. I sent people, I took you places, I gave you dreams and you still didn’t listen. God says listen, I am a God of my word and I don’t make promises that I can’t keep and make good on. And in my word I said;
“Be not deceived I (God) will not be mocked whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap. I didn’t do it to you, you did it to yourself.”
Now for the rest of you, you fall under the category of (persecution) that is to mean that because you are my people and you desire to be like me, the prince of the power of this world, who is Satan, has it out for you.
I told you when you started the journey that the road would not be easy. I told you if they persecuted me how much more they shall persecute you who want to be like me. I told you if you wanted to follow me you had to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Yet when you find yourself in these situations, you get angry with me and boycott the church, bible study talking to me. When what you don’t realize is that whatever I have allowed to take place in your life I first put in mine own hand. I sized it up to you. I made sure that it would not overtake you or destroy you. I made sure the devil didn’t overstep his boundaries and you were always safe in my arms. I am God and there is none like me I am God and there is none that can be compared to me. You can’t figure me out. So stop trying. My ways are higher than your ways and my thought are higher than your thoughts.
The problem here was never what I did or didn’t do. For my ways are perfect and flawless the problem rather is how you responded to what was happening to you. If you had at any time remembered that I gave you power to tread over every serpent and scorpion and over all the power of the devil, you could have spoken to that spirit of fear, worry, doubt, stress, depression and cast it away. If you had the faith the size of a mustered seed, you could have spoken to the mountain to be moved and be cast into the sea. But I was afraid Lord. But I told you when the enemy should come in like a flood I would raise up a standard against him. When you go through the fire that I would not let the hair on your head get burned.
But don’t you worry I was always there. I told you I would never leave you nor would I ever forsake that I would go with you even unto the end of the world. Even when the enemy would have totally taken you I told the Devil that’s enough and he could go no further. Why, Just because I love you. I know you can’t grasp it all right now. But like the song we sing so often:
“We are often tossed and driven on the restless seas of time somber skies and howling tempest oft succeed a bright sunshine, in that land of perfect day when the mists have rolled away we will understand it better bye and bye.
Trials dark on every hand and we can not understand all the ways that God would lead us to that blessed promised land, But He guides us with His eye and we’ll follow till we die For we will understand it better bye and bye.
Temptations hidden snares often take us unawares and our hearts are made to bleed for many a thoughtless word or deed, and we wonder why the test when we try to do our best But we’ll understand it better by and by.
Bye and Bye when the morning comes all that saints of God will be gathering home, we will tell the story of how we’ve overcome and we’ll understand it better bye and bye”
I have allowed and will continue to allow these things good, bad or indifferent to come into your life and the reason is just because I love you.
