The end is only the middle

Have you ever had one of those times where God has promised you something, you get all hopeful and then the opposite happens. Well if you have you are not alone. However, before we go giving up on God's promises we may need to check our own perspective first.

If you look at Jesus promise in John 11:4 when asked about Lazarus and his illness, Jesus said "Lazarus's sickness will not end in death." so by verse 14 when Jesus said "Lazarus is dead" people must have been pretty confused.

I wonder what they thought? Did Jesus make a mistake? Was He lying? Maybe it was some twisted joke?

I've known so many times where God's promises are closely followed by what appears to be a move in the opposite direction. But just as with the story of Lazarus God's purposes are not accidental, or weak. They are very purposeful.

It's true that when we hear God's promise to us there is sometimes spiritual attack to steal our joy, hope or faith. But often it's just God at work.

The case of Lazarus dying seems to have no sense of spiritual attack. Jesus didn't cast out the spirit of death or appear to be 1-0 down to the devil at half time. This was simply Jesus at work, stacking the odds against Himself in order to increase the belief and faith of His followers. This is Mount Carmel territory.

But nonetheless Lazarus was dead. If we didn't know the end of the story we might be as confused as they maybe were.

But this was not the end, it was the middle. Jesus hadn't finished.

Created over 1 year ago