Father, I thank you that You are so generous. Thank You for Jesus, Who release the light wherever He goes. I thank You for the ability to break into places of captivity, fear, hurts and wounds, loss, death and destruction. Nothing intimidates You. You are able and we worship You with who we are, where we are and what we are, because we know where You are, who You are and what You are. You are the resurrection and the Life, Jesus. Nothing stops You from accessing what You want to touch. You want to touch us, so we welcome You. Right now, we open our hearts to be touched by You and to receive what You have for us. Amen
Let’s look at John 5:
24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. 25 Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, 27 and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. John 5:24-27
Heaven is holding a place of connection so that life can flow where death has reigned. Jesus is saying here,that this is the resurrection life of awakening. Most of the time, when we read the word “raised”, it is walking about rising up, awakening. It is a broad spectrum word. It is certainly larger than the dead shall be raised. In the next few verses, it goes on to say that:
28 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. John 5:28-29
So, we see that there is a rising up of the dead that aren’t in graves and a rising up of those that aren’t dead on the last day.
Our point here is that: What activates resurrection is the voice of God. The voice of God, releases the Glory of God. The Glory of God is resurrection life. The voice of God, releases the Life of God or the Glory of God.
In John 11, we come to the story of Martha and Mary that will help us to learn to yield. If I have learned anything in life, it is that God doesn’t need my help—but He does want me to yield to Him. He wants all of us to acknowledge His sovereignty, Goodness, Lordship, resurrection and His life.
Often times, for us, is to make that contact in the context of my circumstances. God is the same every day. We want to be able to daily say that He is good so we want Him to do something good for us every day—but He is good, even when our day is bad, when things are unraveling.
Here we read that a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany. This was the town where he lived with his sisters, Martha and Mary. It was Mary that anointed Him with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair. Lazarus, her brother was sick:
Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. 3 Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” 4 When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus John 11:1-5
There are volumes of teachings in this chapter. Jesus is no longer in Jerusalem. He was a few months away from His crucifixion and there is intense warfare. In fact, He left Jerusalem because they tried to stone Him (John: 10). He is now down in the Jordan, by Jericho, where John was baptizing. He is conducting His meetings and now living from here. So, they send word down from Jerusalem to say, that His friend, Lazarus, whom He loves is sick.
The word “friend” here is “philos”. It means that special place of fondness. Lazarus was a friend of Jesus.
Bethany is about two miles from Jerusalem. He would simply go up the Mount of Olives and down to Bethany. Bethany was where Jesus spent all His time when he was in ministry because it was a place of
rest, refreshing and blessing. He enjoyed Himself there. He was cared in His humanity for by Martha. Martha fed him and fussed over Him while Mary valued Him, listened to Him and intently responded to the voice of His words.
Until now, we haven’t seen Lazarus in the story. He is sick.
Jesus then made a declaration that wasn’t just heard by the disciples but by the messengers as well say that this sickness was not unto death but for the glory of God.
4 When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. John 11:4-5
We read that Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Here, the word “love” here is “agape”. This is a choice held because heaven holds it. It is coming into the love that God carries. So Jesus had to restrain Himself in His humanity, His fondness and His delight. Jesus could have gotten there and healed him.
So, we pray to God, we walk with God, we enjoy moving with Him in concert with Him. We have dreams, plans and purposes. We have access and pleasure of His presence. At some point of time, however something hits a snag. Sickness, disease, infirmity or feebleness steps in. At these points, we cry out for healing. We want to be well, to be made whole or strengthened. We want to access this place through our relationship.
But, we see in scripture that Jesus doesn’t always answer on our timetable. How dare Jesus not answer us when we ask Him to do something! Doesn’t He know that I know where the Glory of God is? We know where God would get glory! We have all said this hundreds of times. Right? We tell the Lord that He missed a great opportunity. He could have done something here and then we could have done something there…and the heavens would have opened the door for many more things. But—He doesn’t listen. But why should He? He listens to Father God and He still follows Father’s advice. He still moves in concert and Holy Spirit moves in this concert with Him.
But in His humanity, Jesus was holding a place.
So, Jesus waits two days. Scripture tells us that He stayed two more days. This was Jesus, our Lord, holding Himself by His Spirit, until the Father says, “Go”.
He then says to His disciples that they were going to go up to Jerusalem. His disciples told Him that everyone was trying to kill Him there. He answered that if we walk in the Light, Light will always be there. It was the time to go and their friend, Lazarus was sick, sleeping. They answered that if he was sleeping, he would wake up. He would get better. That his sleeping was a good sign.
I love the way the Lord, even in His humanity, didn’t like to give glory to death. Jesus used this word as a way in which He could interrupt it. Similarly to the way you could interrupt someone sleeping.
Jesus then said that Lazarus was dead. He said that He was glad for their sake that they weren’t there.
We have to understand—all of us travel with someone who carries resurrection life, who lives under a whole different auspices than our humanity. He doesn’t live from the soul or the flesh but lives from Spirit. He is not someone that is easily followed.
Jesus was telling them that this was going to be really good for them. Thomas, said, “Let’s just go up there and die together. We all sometimes just agree to die a noble death in our actions.
Jesus arrived.. Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. The maximum time of death was five days. Martha meets Jesus with strong words.
20 Now Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him, but Mary was sitting in the house. 21 Now Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have
died. John 11:20-21
The picture the Lord showed me about this was that prayer and intercession has the potential to convolute and collapse upon itself. Prayer, upon prayer, upon prayer, trying to direct, correct, fix, resolve, heal, and help, often starts to collapse upon itself. I don’t mean that it is collapsing upon itself in that it is of no consequence, heaven’s not responding or heaven’s heart is not moved. I simply mean that we are in a pickle in the dilemma. And, we don’t know how to keep from going in circles. It starts to collapsing upon itself and be convoluted.
Prayer itself does not do anything. What does something is the voice of God. Only hearing Jesus is where life comes. Prayer is the best thing we do to get there. We have to find much freedom in dialoged. This is why conversational prayer is one of the ways we heal the best. This is because in conversational prayer, we can simply talk with the Lord, explain the journey we just walked out and confess how confused we are. When we feel the liberty to do this, we can really get free fast.
When we feel that God is going to be angry with us because we weren’t in faith the whole time, is just stupid. But it is very easy to feel this way. We reason that God is somehow expecting us to rise to some high level of equality by our actions or our will or our workings of our flesh or strength. So, in this place we resource flesh, will and self. All we are really doing here is fumbling, falling and getting under greater condemnation, anxiety and fear. We then want to go hide and get our fig leaves back in place. This is not what Jesus needs.
But, Mary’s prayer was convoluting and very accusative. “…if You had been here my brother wouldn’t have died”. Thank God we have that recorded because we can pray that same prayer.
Here is how Jesus answered her,
22 But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” John 11:20-23
Listen to how this conversation continues…
24 Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
At this point, for us, we were having a “voice” encounter. There was too much grief and sorrow at this point. We aren’t ready to hear. There was too much “death” for us to hear it and say, “Yeah, let’s just do it”.
This is what Jesus came to do. She hears this and tries to process it. She is taking a promise and putting it to the future, to a future event. But, Jesus is the Person of promise wanting to interrupt her current event.
All we need is faith today. There is no faith for tomorrow. Faith is now, therefore faith cannot be for tomorrow. That is hope. Hope is for tomorrow. We need faith for today and hope for the future.
We hear the voice of God and assume that if we go that way, or say yes, how will we sustain it tomorrow? We don’t have to worry about this! That is Daddy’s problem. He has to come and talk to us tomorrow and it continues from there. He WILL talk to us. This is why,
15 while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” Hebrews 3:15
It is not about hearing His voice tomorrow, it is about today. The possibility of resurrection life and the glory of God, is always today.
So, Jesus has to say, “I am…
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
This is our Jesus. He will delay His coming to us, so that He might be more glorified in His coming at a later date. This is so good! It isn’t for us to look good or feel good. It is for Him to be looking good and feeling wonderful. We do—when He does!
We can see how this prayer is collapsing. But Mary responds with a really honest point of agreement.
27 She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” John 11:27
This is a beautiful point of agreement, “I believe You are the Son of God. You have come into the world”. Here she was in a present connection, not a future connection. She could connect right now to the anointed One.
We get stuck so many times on if He had been here…this wouldn’t have happened. When He finally gets here, we can’t be healed or delivered, because we have too many problems with the past to hear the present. We still have too many questions that need resolutions. We don’t need our questions answered. We just need Jesus to be experienced. Every Jesus experience will swallow up every question in our lives. These experiences just settle it all.
So, Mary then sends for her sister.
28 And when she had said these things, she went her way and secretly called Mary her sister, saying, “The Teacher has come and is calling for you.” 29 As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came to
Him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met Him. 31 Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and comforting her, when they saw that Mary rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.” 32 Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Whether we are a worshiper or a worker, grief is grief and loss is loss and the accusation will stay the same. The only difference between Mary and Martha is that Martha may have been standing with her hands folded while Mary would be a puddle on the floor. But the accusation was from an identical prayer, “If you had been here…”
Martha had tried to use her faith. “I know that whatever you ask…” Then Jesus said, “OK, your brother will rise.” She couldn’t grasp that. She knew there was a resurrection coming but she needed help now. His answer was that He was the resurrection and the life.
There is so much life coming to invade the planet. Its coming into the Body first. We are the dead Lazarus’, and the Martha’s and the Mary’s.
33 Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. 34 And He said, “Where have you laid him?” John 11:33-34
This was an intercessory – holding spirit connection in the midst of massive sympathetic movement. There is nothing wrong with sympathetic movement but it is of humanity.
Jesus asked where they had laid him. They brought Him into the room and Jesus wept. His humanity was touched. This is our beautiful Lord. He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He KNOWS how hard it has been for each of us to walk with Him and for us to let Him be Lord over everything that concerns us and respond how we need to respond to hold our place. He knows how we want Him to move for us. He knows and feels it.
Jesus wasn’t angry or frustrated. He was in a deep place of feeling. Everyone said, See how He weeps? He really loved him.
34 And He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!” 37 And some of them said, “Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?” John 11:34-37
These were the entire multitude of people. They wondered, couldn’t He have kept something from happening? The point is that we are trying to keep things from happening. Come on! This is the gospel of resurrection, not preservation! We are a people of the cross, not of control! We live a whole bunch of control and call it love.
Then, again, Jesus was groaning within Himself.
38 Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. John 11:38
This is deep. There is such a conflict going on. We are called to live the life that Jesus did while He lived on the planet, in the resurrected form of the second Adam, the last Adam, of the life giving Spirit. We are supposed to be spiritual, no longer soulish. Our soul is going to the cross every single day. When He says, “Lay down your life” Lose your life, You’re going to suffer to the death—this is all about your “psuche”—your suitcases!
Think about this: psuche, physiology. We have to lay down everything—our opinions, our feelings, our agendas, our thoughts, what we want or don’t want, what we had! Laying it all down! We think, “Jesus, You are hard to walk with but You have words of life so we keep laying it down. Over and over we lay it down and live by the spirit. We have to learn to do this. This is our assignment while we are on earth.
He would say to us:
“Come away My beloved. Quiet yourself in My Spirit. Come into the depth of Me. Come, let you and Me be one as I give life to the dead and call things that don’t exist as though they do. Activate hope where hope has gone dead. I don’t want any denial! Don’t go back trying to go to the gym or trying to help. I don’t need your help.
It comes by being in the presence of Whom we believe. It does not come by the law or our approval process. It comes just by being in Him, letting Him talk to us, affect our vision, emotions and thoughts, where hope comes back alive.
There shouldn’t be any hope because the resource we started with is less than what we started with. We are older than when we began. Like Abraham, our wife has always had a closed womb but now we don’t know if we can respond. This is what He says. He says, “Deal with yourself”. Don’t deny you have a dead body and don’t deny your wife has a dead womb.
We can all be so religious. We act as if God doesn’t know what are issues are. This is our place.
When we get in the soul or flesh, this is the place where we grew up in. As a child, we were awakened hungry and we began to respond to a soul activation. We are a fleshly child until our spirit comes alive. We are now trying to live from that place in the spirit. It takes just being with Him. Jesus was pulled in this place and so are we. We are called to “Let it go and then let it go, I won’t take the accusation”.
Isn’t it funny that when God doesn’t do what we want, our soul processes it as there must be something wrong? Instead of us acknowledging that we have a real problem with what just happened. We process that something wrong just happened that shouldn’t have happened. I feel so badly because it shouldn’t have happened. If it had happened the way I wanted it to happen, I wouldn’t feel badly so it must be wrong.
39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” John 11:39
Martha is the practical one. Jesus is coming to “stinky” place now. At the tomb, He tells them to roll away the stone.
40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” John 11:40
Today, this is all He is asking of us—that if we would believe, we would see the glory of God—do not harden our hearts, just believe. Where does He want access? Where death is resting, where loss has taken the greatest toll, where grief has swallowed our soul up, where we had to lay to death hopes, dreams, family, everything, so He can roll the stone away.
We feel that we aren’t ready for this. We don’t want to go through this, we don’t like the smell of death, or we can’t handle this. It is worst when we feel that if He was here He could have resolved it, but now it is way past being able to be fixed. There is no healing to this thing now.
All we have in the future is resurrection. Aren’t we glad that God isn’t going to heal our body and take us to heaven? Do we really want to take our current body to heaven? He is a resurrection God. Resurrection life affects more than just the resurrection from the dead at that appointed hour at the trumpet. It is affecting all of life right now.
41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.[d] And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” John 11:41-42
This prayer was for us! This was a prayer that we could overhear the life in a fashion where Jesus walked with Daddy, in a presence, in a communion, in conversation, in a flow. He was saying, “Daddy, I’m so glad You always hear me”.
43 Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” John 11:43
We have all been in so many prayer meetings where we cry out, “Lazarus, come forth!” The truth is that there wasn’t a soul there that was saying that. Martha was just freaking out! She thought, “My neighbors, my friends, they are all going to talk about this for so long. This is the most embarrassing moment of my life”. Mary was crying and the group was thinking that Jesus was going too far. There was so much tension!
44 And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.” 45 Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in Him. 46 But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things Jesus did. John 11:44-46
The resurrection life that is for us is something that is coming to the dead places. Resurrection needs death. This is the problem with resurrection life…it needs death. Resurrection life doesn’t work on healing. It has to have the component of death.
So that Jesus can be glorified by certain things, He permits this process to come to this conclusion in our lives.
We look at it and think, “No way, sickness was bad enough that led to my death and now the death is hard and I’m now in total confusion. I’m trying to have a relationship and a conversation. It is really difficult. I’m still agreeing that You are Messiah.
We just need to have this simple faith, “I still believe You, Jesus. I still believe that You are the Savior. I don’t care what is going on or what I’m doing or not doing or what is happening—You are still Jesus!”
Jesus will move when it is resurrection time!
Upcoming Events
Sunday, April 3, 2015, 9am: I will be sharing “Divine Disruption! How the voice of the Lord causes multiplication in the earth.” When the sound was heard, a multitude came together.
Sunday, 10:20am: Nations Prayer – Our time to decree history with the Lamb! Join us and engage yourself in the journey of the nations toward the throne of God.
Sunday, 11am: I will be sharing “Divine Interruption! How the voice of God interrupts the courses on the earth and brings divine alignment to His purposes.” “What must we do?” the multitude asked. The questions are coming when the answer is given – Jesus.
Father’s Heart Opportunities
The Heart of the Father is burning toward this Generation. Our response? To know Him, love Him, love His body, and receive His love toward us.
Join us as we respond to His cry for us to come closer. We are inviting all those between the ages of 18-40 to journey with us in one of two ways:
The first is the Father’s Heart Internship (FHI). It is an invitation to step into our identity as sons and daughters, to build community with like minded people, and to step into a mentorship by the Senior Pastor. Click here for more information on FHI.
The Second invitation is the Father’s Heart School of Leadership (FHSOL). This is a call to those who choose to be trained in leadership, are willing to step into their destinies, overcome fear, and learn how to allow the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us as we serve, in love. It is a discovery of the best leader that has ever walked the face of the earth, Jesus Christ. Click here for more information on FHSOL.
