These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” John 11:11
"Wake him up? The dude's dead, man!" The reaction from His disciples today would be only different in style than what our Lord received back in the day. We tend in the flesh to see the death of that flesh as final. Jesus taught us that we only go to sleep as we await the resurrection of our Lord. This stands in stark contrast to the hopeless face of the worldly one who would advise us to experience everything we can here before all is finished.
I have even got into a bad habit in that respect, sometimes saying, "the condemned man ate a hearty"...pizza, burger, salad, dish of veggies- whatever final meal the man might want. (A sarcastic "yeah right!" on those last two.) This is absurd on at least two fronts: One, if I am still condemned, then I have not been saved by the Lord Jesus and I should quickly shut up with these messages as my ministry would be false. Two: there are so many more experiences of far greater delight awaiting me in eternity with my Lord that to worry over storing up one more in this land of shadows is a priceless sort of silly. As I wish to be neither false nor silly in my ministry for the Lord, then it is time to cease with that little statement.
Dear Lord, let me be neither false nor silly in this ministry, but loving and kind. Amen.
Bucky
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