...if John the Baptist had a car...
Snug beneath these mountains topped with snow, my heart is caving in on itself. There are empty rooms in a house below, the house in which I live. empty cavities of people sized holes where people used to be, and should be still.
Ever wonder when the Lord is going to swoop in and fix your situation?
I do, I wonder.
Ever wonder when the Lord is going to swoop in and fix your situation?
I do, I wonder.
Do you have circumstances in your life that you wish God would swoop in and change? Are there problems beyond you that you wish the Lord would just hurry up and fix already? I do. I have had many moments alone in my car when I just yelled and screamed at God, "WHY ARE YOU ALLOWING THESE THINGS TO CONTINUE TO HAPPEN?"
And then, in all of my finite human wisdom,
"THIS IS DOING NO ONE ANY GOOD!"
"The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved."
Jeremiah 8:20
-yes, I have been there, yes I have felt that!
I don't think that the Lord is ever FOR bad and sinful things happening to us. I think that sometimes he allows them to happen without intervening because He knows that out of them will eventually come a greater healing. What the enemy means for evil, He himself is turning to good in our lives.
He knows something we don't know.
John the Baptist had lived his whole life completely devoted to Jesus. He never wavered in this. He knew clearly that Jesus, his cousin, was the Messiah that the whole world had been groaningly waiting for. I'm sure that many of the people throughout history up to this point had prayed something like, "GOD! WHY HAVE YOU NOT YET RESCUED US?? WHERE IS THIS MESSIAH, already!! DO SOMETHING!"
GOD DID, but it was in the perfect timing, from his own wisdom not understood by the wisdom of the humans.
So here is John the Baptist, completely devoted, preaching about Jesus before Jesus ever preached about himself,
and warning the religious leaders of the day,
"You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think that you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father' I tell you that out of those stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."
Matthew 3:7-10
And he didn't even make any small talk before he said that; and he did not consider whether his words were "seeker friendly." He was simply preparing the way for Jesus and not tolerating the evil he saw in his day.
If John had had a car, it would not have a "COEXIST" bumper sticker on the back.
He later warned Herod, the leader of the people, that is was WRONG of Herod to have taken his brother's wife as his own.
John did not say "Tolerance, tolerance, tolerance. Let's just all tolerate sin, because this is the loving thing to do!"
He did not.
Because it's not.
So Herod put John in prison.
And John felt completely betrayed by Jesus, the Jesus for whom he had devoted everything to preparing the way.
Maybe John was thinking,
"Thanks, cousin Jesus, I'M THE ONLY ONE SPEAKING UP FOR YOU, and THIS is how you repay me? BECAUSE I ACTUALLY KNOW WHO YOU ARE, AND I KNOW THAT YOU COULD HAVE PROTECTED ME FROM THE WRATH OF HEROD."
"When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, 'Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?"
Matthew 11:2-3
These are the words of a man who was disheartened, hurt, feeling disappointed and let down by Jesus.
The very Jesus he had lived his life defending.
And then, in all of my finite human wisdom,
"THIS IS DOING NO ONE ANY GOOD!"
"The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved."
Jeremiah 8:20
-yes, I have been there, yes I have felt that!
I don't think that the Lord is ever FOR bad and sinful things happening to us. I think that sometimes he allows them to happen without intervening because He knows that out of them will eventually come a greater healing. What the enemy means for evil, He himself is turning to good in our lives.
He knows something we don't know.
John the Baptist had lived his whole life completely devoted to Jesus. He never wavered in this. He knew clearly that Jesus, his cousin, was the Messiah that the whole world had been groaningly waiting for. I'm sure that many of the people throughout history up to this point had prayed something like, "GOD! WHY HAVE YOU NOT YET RESCUED US?? WHERE IS THIS MESSIAH, already!! DO SOMETHING!"
GOD DID, but it was in the perfect timing, from his own wisdom not understood by the wisdom of the humans.
So here is John the Baptist, completely devoted, preaching about Jesus before Jesus ever preached about himself,
and warning the religious leaders of the day,
"You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think that you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father' I tell you that out of those stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."
Matthew 3:7-10
And he didn't even make any small talk before he said that; and he did not consider whether his words were "seeker friendly." He was simply preparing the way for Jesus and not tolerating the evil he saw in his day.
If John had had a car, it would not have a "COEXIST" bumper sticker on the back.
He later warned Herod, the leader of the people, that is was WRONG of Herod to have taken his brother's wife as his own.
John did not say "Tolerance, tolerance, tolerance. Let's just all tolerate sin, because this is the loving thing to do!"
He did not.
Because it's not.
So Herod put John in prison.
And John felt completely betrayed by Jesus, the Jesus for whom he had devoted everything to preparing the way.
Maybe John was thinking,
"Thanks, cousin Jesus, I'M THE ONLY ONE SPEAKING UP FOR YOU, and THIS is how you repay me? BECAUSE I ACTUALLY KNOW WHO YOU ARE, AND I KNOW THAT YOU COULD HAVE PROTECTED ME FROM THE WRATH OF HEROD."
"When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, 'Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?"
Matthew 11:2-3
These are the words of a man who was disheartened, hurt, feeling disappointed and let down by Jesus.
The very Jesus he had lived his life defending.
People are afraid to speak the truth in love. Afraid to speak up for righteousness. Afraid of being politically incorrect, and offending anyone else. I'm just like you. I want all people to like me while reserving the right to not have to like them back. I'm not willing to put my own neck on the line. Because like you, I don't want to have to suffer for doing the right thing.
But maybe Jesus would ask me to put my neck on the line.
Literally.
And maybe we will have to suffer for doing and saying the right thing.
People don't like it when you say the right thing, and not the politically correct thing.
People don't like it when you stand up for the Lord.
But are we living to please people, or living to please GOD?
the bible still says that
"...in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
Romans 8:28
All things. Not just the things that make sense to us, that seems like working out of good and lack of persecution or pain.
So in those times of deepest misunderstanding of why the Lord is allowing a painful thing into our lives, we have to rely on the knowledge that
"The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."
1 Corinthians 1:25
sometimes this is the ONLY thing we can truly know.
Even in John's disheartened doubt, Jesus told John's disciples,
"Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me."
Matthew 11:4-6
And then Jesus said to all of the people around him,
"Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist."
Matthew 11:11
These were the last words Jesus ever said to John, because shortly after this, John was beheaded.
In other words, no one showed up to retrieve John from prison.
The Lord did not send angels to break John's chains, nor did he send angels to stop the ax from severing John's head.
What? Did I read that right?
I have been a Christian for many years, I have read the bible clean through, and yet is has only been within the past month that I stumbled upon these words:
"The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and on one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death."
Isaiah 57:1-2
John the Baptist was a righteous man who died young.
And then this occurred to me: That since Jesus Christ is the Jesus who came to bear our burdens and carry our griefs for us,
maybe, he was doing this very thing for John in allowing John to die young.
Jesus knew that he himself was soon to also die. But where as John's death, through gross and gruesome, was quick and hopefully painless, the death of Jesus was going to be long, drawn out, and agonizingly torturous.
So maybe, just maybe, Jesus was actually mercifully sparing John from having to watch that.
Maybe Jesus was thinking, John, you have always been the only person who truly understand who I am, why I have come, and you have spent your life devoted to me. You are my closest relative and friend. So if one of us has to grieve for the death of the other, let it be me. I will grieve over your death so that you do not have to grieve over mine, and then by the time I am restored to paradise, you will already be there, and we will be celebrating at being reunited. But you will not understand this before it happens. But truly, this is what it looks like for me to be personally bearing your burden for you.
The bible had foretold this about Jesus:
"He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed."
Isaiah 53:3-5
He did this for us, yet we did not understand that He was doing this for us.
But maybe Jesus would ask me to put my neck on the line.
Literally.
And maybe we will have to suffer for doing and saying the right thing.
People don't like it when you say the right thing, and not the politically correct thing.
People don't like it when you stand up for the Lord.
But are we living to please people, or living to please GOD?
the bible still says that
"...in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
Romans 8:28
All things. Not just the things that make sense to us, that seems like working out of good and lack of persecution or pain.
So in those times of deepest misunderstanding of why the Lord is allowing a painful thing into our lives, we have to rely on the knowledge that
"The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."
1 Corinthians 1:25
sometimes this is the ONLY thing we can truly know.
Even in John's disheartened doubt, Jesus told John's disciples,
"Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me."
Matthew 11:4-6
And then Jesus said to all of the people around him,
"Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist."
Matthew 11:11
These were the last words Jesus ever said to John, because shortly after this, John was beheaded.
In other words, no one showed up to retrieve John from prison.
The Lord did not send angels to break John's chains, nor did he send angels to stop the ax from severing John's head.
What? Did I read that right?
I have been a Christian for many years, I have read the bible clean through, and yet is has only been within the past month that I stumbled upon these words:
"The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and on one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death."
Isaiah 57:1-2
John the Baptist was a righteous man who died young.
And then this occurred to me: That since Jesus Christ is the Jesus who came to bear our burdens and carry our griefs for us,
maybe, he was doing this very thing for John in allowing John to die young.
Jesus knew that he himself was soon to also die. But where as John's death, through gross and gruesome, was quick and hopefully painless, the death of Jesus was going to be long, drawn out, and agonizingly torturous.
So maybe, just maybe, Jesus was actually mercifully sparing John from having to watch that.
Maybe Jesus was thinking, John, you have always been the only person who truly understand who I am, why I have come, and you have spent your life devoted to me. You are my closest relative and friend. So if one of us has to grieve for the death of the other, let it be me. I will grieve over your death so that you do not have to grieve over mine, and then by the time I am restored to paradise, you will already be there, and we will be celebrating at being reunited. But you will not understand this before it happens. But truly, this is what it looks like for me to be personally bearing your burden for you.
The bible had foretold this about Jesus:
"He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed."
Isaiah 53:3-5
He did this for us, yet we did not understand that He was doing this for us.
I don't know what types of persecution you have faced or will face in the future. I don't know if my own pain will ever resolve itself into the ways I wish with all of my being that they would. So I am choosing to keep my focus on Jesus, knowing that someday, someday, it will make sense. But that day might not be in this lifetime.
And yet I trust that HE IS GOOD,
HE IS SO VERY GOOD,
AND BETTER THAN I CAN POSSIBLY KNOW.
To God be all the glory,
Amen.
And yet I trust that HE IS GOOD,
HE IS SO VERY GOOD,
AND BETTER THAN I CAN POSSIBLY KNOW.
To God be all the glory,
Amen.
posted by Sparkle Sugarplum @ January 11, 2015
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