LEARNING BY WAITING ON THE LORD
The Bible says: “ Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart” (Psalm 27:14). Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths (Proverb 3:5-6). They who wait on the Lord shall not be disappointed (Romans 10:11)
The Bible gives us a demonstration of the Lord responding to his Bible people who were waiting on him. They felt he was too late for what they needed him to do. But he proved God is always on time. He gave us a written record of this demonstration so that we might trust while waiting on him.
JESUS’ BIBLE FRIENDS LEARNED BY WAITING
Mary and her sister Martha, who were close friends of Jesus sent word for him to come and heal their brother Lazarus who was terminally ill. Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
Jesus loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus, but the Lord stayed where he was two more days, although the sister were anxious for him to come and heal their brother.
After Jesus stayed where he as for two days, he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea,” where Lazarus was. And he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up .”His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.
When he got to Judea, Lazarus had been dead for four days. When Martha saw Jesus, she said, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus said, “Your brother will rise again.” And he said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.
When Mary came and saw Jesus, she said, like her sister Martha,” “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Jesus wept.
Jesus asked them to take him to the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to
the tomb. “Take away the stone” of the tomb, he said. But Martha said, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
They took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
“Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.” (John 11:1-45).
WHAT WE LEARN BY WAITING
- JESUS LOVES US AS MUCH AS HE LOVED HIS FRIENDS IN THE BIBLE.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Jesus said: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 13:15).
- GOD’S WAYS ARE DIFFERENT THAN OUR WAYS
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
- GOD WORKS ALL THINGS TOGETHER FOR OUR GOOD
We may have problems of stress related to health, family, finance or whatever. However, when you “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthews 6:33), God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). For “in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28).
Because of all the good things that our Lord and Savior does for us, God has decreed: “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:10-11).
WE LEARN WE WILL BE RESURRECTED TO BE LIKE THE LORD
By waiting, we learn the lord will resurrect us with a better body than that of Lazarus:
“We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).
“We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
