Don't get me wrong. Redemption is definitely at the heart of the Good News. Without the atonement and the repairing of our broken relationship with God, we would be doomed in a way far worse than any earthly trial. But if that was all our faith-walk was about, we would quickly relegate God to a spiritual realm and find some other source to trust for our daily problems, because mankind is simply not wired to do anything else. We either trust and worship the God of the universe, or we trust and worship a god of our own creation, even if that god is another person or a world system.
But thankfully, gloriously, God is intimately concerned about our daily lives. He is about being at work around us, always doing something in and through us. He is with us, bottom line. I've started calling this the "now" of Jesus.
The past 10 days have challenged me like I cannot describe. More than once, I've desperately told Him that I trust Him for the long term, but I need to see Him working today! And in ways I never would have imagined, He has come through. He's peeled back my limited vision, my determination to trust Him that was laced with a preconceived outcome, and said to me, "Child, watch me at work when you don't understand what I'm doing." This is the NOW of Jesus...letting go of any and everything but Him, and looking to see what He is doing.
Mary and Martha learned this lesson when their brother Lazarus died. Amazingly, Jesus didn't quickly run to the side of his dear friend while he was ill. He intentionally delayed until Lazarus was dead. Then He showed up with a plan that would ultimately blow a mere healing out of the water: He raised Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus' illness was for the glory of God.
Before He raised Lazarus, though, He had a lesson for his sister. John 11:17-27 records the dialogue between the two:
Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
Martha gave a very spiritual answer to Jesus' question. She knew Jesus could heal, but her view of Him was limited. She had faith in what she knew of Him, and in the future eternal state. But Jesus wanted to teach her something new about the NOW of Jesus: He wanted her to see Him act in a glorious way that would prefigure the ultimate resurrection of the dead.
Glory was at stake. Jesus told His disciples when He didn't go immedately that Lazarus' illness was for the glory of God. Part of that glory was teaching a hurting sister that He was involved NOW, not just at the final trumpet. He didn't respond the way she expected (by healing Lazarus) ... He did something even more glorious. And He profoundly showed up in the NOW.
In Psalm 27:13, David cries, "Yet I am confident that I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here in the land of the living." David knew the "NOW" of God. Sure, He doesn't always act like we expect. But He is always at work around us. He is always in the "NOW". Are you facing a circumstance where you've given up hope and relegated the answer to the eternal spiritual realm? Look for ways God is revealing Himself gloriously in the NOW.
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