Lazarus, Come Forth!

~You know the waters have been beyond rough of late...and there didn't seem to be any answers...and the Lord was quiet....Is that not THE WORST silence of all?!?!...Hurting beyond hurt - physically, emotionally spiritually; bloody knuckles from pounding on Heaven's Door, and still God is silent....And yet, He was teaching me and showing me....Allowing me to have my "Peter Moment" (Matt. 26:74)....It wasn't pretty....It wasn't living a victorious Christian life....It was a nuclear meltdown.

~Sleep helps...and I truly think the Lord "knocked me out for the count" on the couch yesterday...2 hours of blessed sleep on an icepack. Praise God there wasn't any freezer burn! ~Three very dear friends wrote to me - ministering the Lord's comfort. (You know how it is when you know you've just won the spiritual brat contest, and yet your friends still hang with you!)....Three friends...God's three....Thank-you, Lord!....And through it all, my husband's prayers.

~And then this morning, in the quietness and stillness of the morning, 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 blazed across the page...."For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia; that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead."

~Beloved, there are simply those things that God will bring the sentence of death upon within ourselves so that we do not trust in ourselves, but in Him. And just when we think that we've learned to trust Him in one area - He will bring another area to the Cross for crucifixion. Why? Because when He crushes the flesh out of us - the centrality of the flesh that thinks it is self-sufficient - when there is nothing left upon which to rely but Christ, Himself, then we are at a point of crossing the Red Sea, because then we do not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. It will be that point in our lives when the answer will be Only One - Jesus Christ, the Glory and Lifter of our head...My God in Whom I put my trust. My God Who IS Faithful and True. My God Who will NEVER leave me nor forsake me.

~I will not be able to say, "Look at me. Look how faithful I was. Look how hard I prayed. Look how much I fasted. Look at this or look at that. NO! It will be - LOOK TO THE CROSS, AND YOU WILL FIND YOUR ANSWER! LOOK TO THE EMPTY TOMB, AND YOU WILL FIND HE IS RISEN! NOW, LOOK TO THE LAZARUS WITHIN YOUR OWN TOMB, AND YOU WILL HEAR HIM CALL YOU...."LAZARUS COME FORTH!"

~Beloved, please let me remind you...Lazarus had NO FAITH TO BE HEALED!!!! Lazarus was D-E-A-D!!! DEAD!!! That which is dead has NO faith! It's dead! But then, Jesus shows up outside our tomb...and tells us that His Glory will be revealed if those OUTSIDE the tomb will believe. He didn't tell Lazarus if he believed. No! He told Martha that if she believed she'd see the Glory of God!

~Beloved, we're either in a Lazarus situation, or we're Martha - called to believe to see the Glory of God revealed in someone else's stinking stench of flesh death. It is tortuous at times to stand by and watch the flesh be killed in someone we love....but as we do, we are to believe for them that the Glory of the Lord will be revealed.

~What is the color of Glory? I think it is pure gold..."that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:7

~Suffering is one area that we just don't want to deal with...and yet, it is just as much a part of our Christian walk as servant hood and laying on of hands. Suffering kills the flesh, and it stinks! But Beloved, we are called to partake in not only His sufferings, but in His consolation to those who ARE suffering.

~In verse 7, the Apostle Paul writes: "And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation." Is this what Jesus meant when He said, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you." (John 6:53)....and in v. 60, "Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying, who can understand it"....and then many left Him....but Peter answered Him in v. 68 "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
~John 6:63 "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life."
"Lazarus, Come forth!"