Not just a healer

God spoke to me pretty clearly this morning… I read a bible study last night and it didn’t mean a whole lot to me…until this morning. Something happened that turned me to lean on God & He reminded me of what I read last night in John 15:11.

I have copied certain sections from the scripture that point out the main parts of the story.

11 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

35 Jesus wept.

36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead

38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said.

“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

The reason Jesus didn’t heal Lazarus & allowed him to die, wasn’t because He didn’t love Lazaras. It was because He knew Mary & Martha KNEW He could heal…They knew Him as the healer. Jesus wasn’t being hard hearted or selfish to allow Lazarus to die, no, he wanted to wait until all thought it was too late.

Lazarus had been in the tomb FOUR DAYS… to the point that there was a bad odor. Everyone thought it was the end, he was dead & there was nothing anyone could do about it. They got on Jesus because they knew that if He was there, He could have healed Lazarus…so why wasn’t He there?

Jesus wanted to show Mary & Martha a different part of His character. He wanted to show them that he is the resurrection & the life. That He can do what you think he cannot. 

Is there something in your life that you feel if God moved now; in a way you know that He CAN…things would be OK!? And the fact that He’s not, you’re thinking it’s too late… It’s never too late, God wants to show you a different side of Him, He wants to show you that He is the great I AM & He can do immeasurably more than you could ask or imagine! Just wait… My favorite line in this chapter is:

40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

Believe Him, trust Him, come with an expectant heart & watch what He is about to do…

Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets. You do not know about things to come. – Jeremiah 33:3