Author: Elaine

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Your Lazarus life, in Christ alone

Sometimes I wish John would have been more Paul Harvey-like. Why didn’t he give us the rest of the story? I mean, come on – wouldn’t it be great to know what happened to Lazarus after he walked out of his own tomb and the graveclothes dropped away? (John 11)

He must have been quite the celebrity. His story would have hit our Yahoo headlines within minutes. Yet we know more about his sisters, Mary and Martha, than we do about Lazarus.

Surely, after that astounding day, his family lived every hour knowing the life they had together was a gift from the One with power to give life to the dead. Surely, for years afterward, they would sit in reflection of how their friendship with Jesus completely changed the course of their lives.

But do we need to know what life was like for Lazarus after he was called out of the darkness of his tomb? Isn’t it much more exciting to think about what our lives are since Christ called us from the darkness of the grave and gave us new life? Everything we have, we have because of Christ.

Keith Getty and Stuart Townend wrote “In Christ Alone,” a song about our Lazarus lives. It deserves to be a “Christmas song,” because it celebrates what Christ came to give us: all of life as children of God. Through Him alone, we are now sons and daughters of the Almighty Creator of the universe. Only because of Christ, we are the new people of God (Galatians 5:16 NLT).

Everything we have in this new life, we owe to Christ.

His love gives us hope and strength, comfort and peace.

His death paid for the wrongs I’ve done and gave me a way back to God.

His victory when caught in Satan’s most powerful trap—death—released me from the power of that curse.

I can live with “no guilt in life, no fear in death.” Wow. Wow. (Help me, Spirit, I do want to live that way!)

His power is greater than anything I can imagine or anything I will meet here on earth, and nothing, nothing, can separate me from that love and comfort and power.

That’s the new life, the new way of living, that Christ gave us.

What if the “rest of the story” was that, once the furor had died down, Lazarus drifted away from his friendship with Jesus, eventually forgot he owed every breath to the One whose power had given him life. How sad and what a waste if, after being given such an amazing gift of life, he did not live it to the fullest!

Do not forget who brought you from the grave. Everything has changed because you know Him. Live the life He came to give you.

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Listen to “In Christ Alone” (I recommend skipping the ad at the beginning!) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENtL_li4GbE . It’s a song to be sung with great reflection; and if you do so, you’ll fall in grateful tears and awed worship at the feet of the One who has power to give you such life.

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New Year’s Day Elijah

Encouragement for all of us from a guest contributor, Vicki VanNatta.

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January 1, 2013, New Year’s Day:

Sigh…Do I really have to face another one of these? Setting goals, evaluating the past year, reviewing my accomplishments – except in my case I review what I didn’t accomplish, which is more obvious. All those things left undone on Dec 31, like a kitchen counter cluttered with the effects of a busy week of running to and fro. It’s draining. January 1 seems like a day designed to showcase my failures, highlight my shortcomings and remind me that my life is passing by—and what exactly have I really accomplished? How will I be remembered? Will I be remembered? What did I do with the time I had? How in the world did I manage to waste so many years?

So I would rather go to bed – yes, I know it’s 10am. And for a person who battles depression, going back to bed at 10am is like an alcoholic having a vodka on the rocks at 10am; a sign that today I am again falling off the wagon. Going to bed, curling up under the safety of blankets and comforter, letting sleep make it all go away for a few hours—I may as well have had several drinks at 10am. I sleep and sleep and sleep some more. Drifting in and out. Feeling guilty, rehearsing my failures during times of consciousness. And to top it off, back to bed at 6:30pm, sleeping soundly until –

 

January 2, 2013:

What time is it??? 4am?

Lord, did you waken me for a reason? It has to be you, Lord, because I’m that no-good sleepaholic bum. Remember? I wasted a day under the covers. Wasted the day I was supposed to be setting goals and creating my life’s plan for this year. Yes, I was truly wide awake and hungry. Only my hunger pangs got me out of bed.

Hot food and drink. A hot shower. Small blessings I often overlook. I visited someone in the hospital this week, and now this morning, standing under hot water running over me, I thought of all those people lying in hospital beds who may not be able to shower for a long time. I’m blessed.

I remember my mom telling me, “Get a good night’s sleep. Things will look better in the morning.” You were right, Mom, they do.

Perhaps I needed the sleep. Can 12 hours of sleep ever be God’s plan? Doesn’t sleeping 12 hours make me a ‘sluggard’? Don’t I remember reading something in Proverbs about lazy people who will come to no good?

But wasn’t it Elijah who slept for hours when he wanted to die? And wasn’t he a prophet or someone God used in an amazing way? Now where is that story? Searching my Bible, I find it. The story of Elijah in I Kings 19.

Elijah was ‘zealous for the Lord,’ but on this day, he ran into the desert, sat under a tree and told God he wanted to die. Utterly hopeless, he slept and ate and slept and ate, in that time finding strength to continue. He heard God’s voice, then, when God spoke to him; and he went on with the work God gave him.

In the end, he never did die, but God took him home in the middle of a whirlwind, in a chariot of fire pulled by horses of fire (2 Kings 2:11). Amazing! He never had to die an earthly death even though he begged for God to take his life that day in the desert.

Yes. I slept the day away, but I think it was God’s plan for me. This morning I have renewed strength and hope; determination to make some changes that need to be made; renewed awareness of the Holy Spirit in my life; and realization of simple blessings – like a hot shower.

New Year’s Day isn’t a day to review my failures. It’s a day to look forward and see that God has given me one more day to be a blessing to someone, to be ‘zealous for the Lord God Almighty.’  Don’t look back. God has forgotten those mistakes of your past. You should work at forgetting them too. You may not be exactly where you want to be, but aren’t you glad you aren’t where you were 20 years ago?

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:19

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Celebrating Christmas

Usually on New Year’s Day I am looking forward. This morning, I’m still looking backward, at a Christmas season that has left me so thankful for the Gift.

Some might say Christmas was pretty much ruined this year. The flu bug rampaged through the ranks of my family and friends. Gatherings were canceled or postponed, church services skipped, Christmas hugs and kisses scarce or at best, cautious. Cars developed mechanical problems at the worst possible times; big repair bills dampened spirits; snow, while delightful, changed travel plans. A mother’s death changed lives. Friends were in a serious accident. I spent Christmas Eve in the waiting room, sitting through my Dad’s emergency surgery and later in the week had my own episodes of illness. And over everything, every day, I felt the terrible shadow of Newtown.

Yet, after having celebrated many previous Christmases, this year I finally began to see the real story. Years of trees and tinsel, food and gift-giving and parties and yes, even beautiful Christmas Eve services, have not helped me understand Christmas as well as these weeks of living in a world that holds so much disappointment, despair, hopelessness, and death.

Most of our traditional Christmas celebrations were stripped away this year and I caught a glimpse of what happened that night in Bethlehem. Christ stepped into our darkness, was willing to live right in it with us, so that He could battle and defeat its power and make a way for us back to God. The real story is light coming to darkness and hope coming to hopelessness.

Joy to the world! The Lord has come — and continues to come to all our darkness.

How will I celebrate next year? I am still pondering that; I’m not sure what I will do next December to honor the Light and the hope we’ve been given. But it seems to me that love that bestows such a gift should be celebrated all year; and that the children of God, who are now a part of His mission on this earth, should be bringing light and hope into dark corners, every day in every way they can.

One thing I know: celebrating Christmas will be different for me, for the rest of my allotted seasons.

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Writing and Speaking the Word

Just a few of my own words today, and these from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together:

But God put this Word into the mouth of human beings so that it may be passed on to others. When people are deeply affected by the Word, they tell it to other people. God has willed that we should seek and find God’s living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings. Therefore, Christians need other Christians who speak God’s Word to them. They need them again and again when they become uncertain and disheartened.  (my emphasis added)

When I read this quote, I saved it in my “writing” files, to read occasionally and remind myself why I write.

Then I realized it applies to all of us who follow Christ together: writer, farmer, salesman, preacher, homemaker, nurse, truck driver, architect, businessman or woman, but above all, Christian. It matters not what we do to make a living; what matters in the journey we travel with others following Christ is that we speak God’s Word to each other.

Psalm 119 says that the Word is a light for our path, it makes us wise, it guides our steps, it revives us when we are low as the dust, it brings encouragement, renews our life, and leads to joy and freedom. Paul says in Ephesians that the Word is the sword of the Spirit, a weapon the Spirit uses to defeat our enemies.

Speak that Word to the Christians who journey beside you. Hand them the sword, offer the bread that revives and encourages, shine the light that shows the way and brings freedom and joy.

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Martha

Jesus loved Martha. With her sister Mary and her brother Lazarus, Martha held a special place in Jesus’ heart.

Were they childhood friends who grew up together? Or distant cousins? Or maybe their home was a place Jesus always felt welcome, a place of refuge where He knew He could kick back and relax, rest, laugh, and eat well.

Whatever the reason, the two sisters and their brother had a cherished friendship with Jesus.

Lazarus is the famous one; he came back from the dead. Mary is the one who knew how to worship, how to sit with the Lord in sweet communion. But Martha … well, somehow we always seem to focus on Martha’s shortcomings.

And I’m going to do that again today. Because, to be honest, Martha is the one most like us. I’ve never even thought of washing someone’s feet with perfume and wiping them dry with my hair, as Mary did. And I’ve never been buried and then come back from the dead. So Martha is the person I recognize, the one most like me.

Unfortunately.

The story is this:

Jesus is preaching somewhere out in the wilderness because it’s too dangerous for Him to stay in Jerusalem—He’s just escaped from a mob that attempted to kill Him. But while He’s out in the hills somewhere, He gets word that His dear friend Lazarus is critically ill. In a decision that must have seemed strange to His disciples, Jesus waits several days before going to His friends. By then, Lazarus is dead.

Word comes to the grieving sisters that Jesus is coming. Martha runs out to meet Him. I can see and hear her grief. “Lord, I wish you would have been here. You could have saved him.”

He tries to comfort her. “Lazarus will live again.”

“Oh, I know that. We will all rise at the resurrection.”

“But, Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. No one who believes in me will ever die. Do you believe me, Martha?”

“Lord, you know I do. I’ve believed from the very beginning that you are the Messiah, that God sent you. You know I believe.”

I can hear her emphasizing the words. She believed. Firmly. From the beginning.

Within the hour, they stand in front of the cave where Lazarus has been entombed. Jesus orders them to roll away the stone at the entrance but Martha objects.

“Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.”

We are such Marthas! We say we believe all the promises of God. We believe in His power. We believe He works for our good. We believe He watches over us and cares for us and protects us. We believe in His goodness and His love. We believe. Yes, we believe.

But when we’re faced with what we call “hard facts of life,” we talk and act as though the Lord of the universe just can’t handle the smelly stuff. Like Martha, who blurted out the truth of her unbelief, what we say both to ourselves and others shows our own lack of faith.

Or maybe Martha’s statement did not come from unbelief—maybe it came from not knowing. Maybe she just never imagined that such a thing could happen. She did not know it was possible. After all, she had probably never seen a dead man walk out of his grave.

Maybe it’s not that we don’t believe. Maybe it’s just that we need to get to know the Father better and catch a grander glimpse of His power that works in our lives—the same power that raised a dead man! That power, the Scriptures promise us, is beyond anything we can imagine.

Jesus loved Martha.

His response to her was, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?”

I don’t think Jesus was scolding Martha. I think He was reminding her, gently, “Martha, there is so much more … if you just believe in me.”

He loves us.

He watches us today and listens to those things we blurt out that show how weak our belief and how small our knowledge of Him. And still He loves us and reminds us, “If you believe, you will see God’s glory. Believe in me, trust me. I have things for you beyond your imagination, beyond anything you think is possible.”

Spirit, help our unbelief.

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Scripture: from John 11