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            This chapter begins with Lazarus of Bethany being sick. He was from the same town as Mary and Martha (Mary was the one who anointed Jesus with fragrance oil and wiped His feet with her hair. She was Lazarus’ sister.) Lazarus’ sister sent to Jesus to let Him know that someone whom He loves personally is sick and needs healing. She thought that because Jesus had a personal connection with Lazarus that He would be more motivated to stop what He was doing and go straight to Lazarus to heal Him. God isn’t a respecter of persons, He doesn’t have “favorites” or love some more than others. He is love and loves us ALL, saved and unsaved.  This is a hard thing for the flesh to fathom, we tend to show favor towards people we are closer too and as we see here in this chapter Jesus kept doing what He was doing and got to Lazarus as He made is way there. He didn’t worry, fear or panic and He didn’t end His current task sooner to get to Lazarus sooner. What’s amazing is, He didn’t even have to go to Lazarus, He could have just spoke His healing into place. But He knew the bigger picture, He knows everything and He knew the testimony that would come out of raising Lazarus from the dead.  His pace didn’t change like Mary thought it would sense Jesus knew Lazarus personally. What Mary couldn’t yet understand was that Jesus knows us all personally, the question isn’t does He know us… God is all knowing and omniscient, its us that needs to ask do we know Him personally? This was a hard thing to understand and fathom at that point because this was of coarse before the cross.

            Mary had to have been confused as to why Jesus didn’t rush over there the second He heard the word. Our flesh wants to overthink things and make theologies out of anything, however, unlike Mary, we have the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us and help us stay in check.  Jesus’ response when He received word of Lazarus was that the sickness will not end in death, but for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified.


            This was an opportunity for Mary to choose faith over fear. Jesus said that her brother wouldn’t die yet in the natural she was watching her brother die. I can see how this could have confused her and how the enemy could have tried to get her to throw in the towel and loose hope as they were putting her brother in the tomb. She was given a choice here: to hold onto the truth that Jesus said or to go off of the way things looked and appeared in the natural. We are given this choice every day in many situations.


            When we are walking in complete faith and listening to God, our actions may confuse the world and not make sense to others. A lot of things Jesus did confused the Jews, but that’s because though He was in the world He was not of it and we are called to be the same way. We are in the world but not of it and our ways should reflect and model Jesus’ ways which means it probably won’t make sense to the outside world. For example, planning an event the secular way would include advertising and following proper protocols for the event. Planning an event God’s way may look nothing like that, the Holy Spirit may even say don’t advertise I will tell the people to come. This would make anyone operating in the secular world confused and they would probably try to work on their own merit and advertise anyways. But for those in faith in Jesus it will make perfect sense; we are called to show up and be obedient with what we have, we aren’t called to do the miracles or perform the supernatural. Thats God’s doing, we aren’t called to feed the five thousand; we are called to show up with what we have and allow God to multiply it. He is the healer, He is the deliver, He is the conquerer; we are to just show up and allow Him to do His thing through us and be willing and obedient. This concept to the world won’t make any sense, and that’s because it requires faith in Him and who HE is.


            Jesus told His disciples that they now needed to go see Lazarus for he was asleep. They didn’t understand and insisted it was good for Lazarus to rest and almost insinuated that they didn’t need to go because resting will make him well. Jesus then had to say plainly that he wasn’t resting he was dead. He then said that for their sakes He is glad that He was not there so that they can beleive. Jesus arriving after Lazarus past is now giving the disciples and the world an opportunity to beleive in Jesus. Something that sticks out here is that Jesus meets us where we are at. He tried to explain in His own way that Lazarus had past and they didn’t get it at all.  Rather then leave them in suspense He spoke it in a way that they could understand. God is always talking to us, more than people think. It’s not that He isn’t trying, its that we aren’t tuned in to hear Him. Picture a radio, something is always playing but if you aren’t tuned into a particular station you won’t hear anything. That doesn’t mean nothing is on, it means you aren’t tuned in. It’s the same with God, if we aren’t hearing Him its not because HE isn’t talking to us, its because we aren’t tuned in. He is so patient and kind and meets us where are at if we allow Him to. He tried to tell His disciples Lazarus was dead and it went over their heads so He rephrased it in a way that they would understand.

 

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            Jesus is the good shepherd, there is only one way to the Father and its through Jesus. The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy but Jesus came to give life and to give it more abundantly.  The devil aims to first steal the word of God from believers, if he can do then he can kill and destroy the harvest. It’s so important to always stay in the word of God and to meditate on it day and night. When we meditate on His word it sews seeds and the more we mediate on it the deeper those roots get. We want our roots in Jesus to grow deep so that when the devil tries to steal the word he will have no success. Jesus is the good shepherd and He is known by His sheep.

            Jesus then says that He lays down His life for His sheep, that no one takes His life, He lays it down. Jesus being betrayed by Judas and being arrested in the middle of the night like a thief wasn’t a surprise to Him. It wasn’t a surprise and He didn’t have to go along with it. He chose too, for His sheep, He laid His life down for us by choice not force.


            All that Jesus preached confused the Jews, half thought He was demon possessed and the other half didn’t think a demon could heal the blind so they weren’t sure what to think. His words went against anything they had ever known and their flesh didn’t know how to take it in.  Our flesh can get so caught in what’s comfortable that when a new revelation comes we have to make sure that our flesh doesn’t try to dismiss it. Fasting helps keep the flesh in check so
that way when new revelations come our Spirit man can receive it without our flesh getting in the way. Living a fasted lifestyle is an amazing way to stay in tune with God.


            Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem and the Jews surrounded Jesus asking Him to stop confusing them and just tell them plainly if He is the Christ. To this, Jesus said that He has already told them time and time again yet they do not beleive Him nor do they listen. They became furious with Him declaring this so they wanted to try again to stone Him but He escaped out of their hands.

 

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            In this chapter Jesus heals a blind man, who had been born blind. First, the disciples asked Him if the man was born this way because he had sinned, or because his parents had sinned. Jesus responded that neither was the case, rather that the works of God should be revealed in him. Yes, sin can lead to the curse if it goes without repentance; and yes the curse pertains to sickness. However, we are in a fallen world, for that reason alone it doesn’t always have to be because someone sinned. Also, its important to remember that that time was before the cross, it was before we could have the Holy Spirit and walk in His freedom through surrendering to Jesus as our Lord. Through the Holy Spirit and His teaching we know a lot more about spiritual warfare and how to stand in the victory that Jesus has already given us. In those days though, that wasn’t the cast yet and so if there was anyone born with any defect it was assumed to be through sin, not due to being in a fallen world or apart of the curse in itself. 

            To heal this man Jesus spit in the mud and formed a clay. This stands out and we can learn a lot from this way that Jesus healed. First, Jesus didn’t always heal the same exact way every time which shows us that it wasn’t a ritual being done, it was done by God. Second, He spat into the mud which is similar to how man was created to begin with when God made man out
of dirt before He breathed His breath of life into Him. Thirdly, Jesus wanted to do away with legalism and religion and this was another way to do that. It was forbidden on the sabbath to kneed in clay and by not only healing this man (which was also forbidden on the Sabbath), Jesus took it one step further and also fashioned or kneeded the clay as well. Jesus came to do away with the box that man had unknowingly put God into. Fourthly, the man had a part to
play in his healing, he was told to then go wash the clay off his eyes after Jesus had covered his eyes in it. We have a part to play in our healing and freedom too, our part is to keep our eyes on Jesus, not the storm. We are to keep seeking Jesus above all else for our freedom, transformation and healing. We are to stay in tune to Him and listen. 
          
            Word got around that the man was healed so he was then brought to the Pharisees for questioning. There became a division over them, some felt like a man of God wouldn’t break the Sabbath, others felt that there was no way a sinner could perform this type of miracle. The Pharisees were so filled with doubt that they couldn’t beleive any of it so they brought in his parents for questioning. The parents basically said that their son is of age ask him, he was born
blind now he sees and they don’t know anything more. His parents were terrified of the Jews, because they had decided that if anyone confessed Him to be the Christ then they would be put out of the synagogue, his parents didn’t want that so they instead passed the burden onto their son.

            The son had no shame in Jesus, he didn’t care whatsoever that the Pharisees could cast him away by showing faith in Jesus. His eyes were just healed by Jesus, how could he care? When the Pharisees saw that they couldn’t get the man to deny Jesus they cast him out.

            When Jesus heard that the man was cast out, He went and found Him and revealed Himself as the Son of God to the man and asked the man if he believed in Jesus. The man cried out that he believed and began to worship Jesus. Jesus said that He came into this world for judgement, that those who do not see may see and those who see may be made blind. Those who humble themselves and surrender to Jesus will be given sight to see, those who harden themselves to Jesus will remain blind. The Pharisees heard this and asked if they were also blind to which Jesus said that their sin remains.

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            Jesus said to the Jews that the truth shall set them free. They didn’t understand, they said that they are Abraham’s descendants and had never been held in bondage to anyone. Jesus said that whoever commits sin is a slave to sin, a slave doesn’t abide in the house forever but a son abides forever. There is that personal relationship with a son, where as a slave is just business.  God wants intimacy with us, through Jesus we can have intimacy with the Father.

            Jesus then gets pretty blunt with them, He tells them that He speaks what He has seen with the Father yet they seek to kill Him; they do what they have seen their father do. They then reply and say that Abraham is their father. Jesus then said that if they were truly Abrahams children they would do the works of Abraham, instead they seek to kill Him the one sent by God and Abraham didn’t do this. He then says that their deeds are the works of their father, the devil. Jesus didn’t sugar coat anything, He didn’t hold back incase of offense He said the full truth and that’s what we need to do.

            I’m going to share this story I heard that was shared by a pastor that describes the importance of sharing the FULL gospel without watering it down. There were workers on a construction site and the supervisor showed up, he wanted to help do manual labor for once so he asked for a job. They gave him the easiest job so he wouldn’t make any mistakes and set them back on their schedule. They gave him 100 2x4’s and said cut each of these to exactly 8 feet in length. He took the first board, measured it out and cut it eight feet and thought there had to be a faster way to do this. So instead of measuring the next board he just layed it under the one he had just cut and cut it to the same length. The problem with this is that because of the width of the saw and the guard and the wood in the way, the next board wasn’t exactly 8 feet, it was 8 feet and a centimeter. He then took that board and got a new one and continued the process all the way to the 100th board and that’s when he realized each board was a different length, none of the boards were 8 feet except for the very first board that was done correctly by using the tape measure. The word of God is like this today in the sense that we have a perfect 8 foot cut that is the gospel, but some twist it or water it down and that creates a board that is 8 foot and some inches. Some highly water it down which makes a 9 foot board. We were given the 8 foot and we need to share and imitate the 8 foot, nothing else. Too many have feared offending people so they share the 9 foot watered down gospel because its more comfortable. But this isn’t what Jesus did, Jesus didn’t water it down and He is the model we are to follow which means we don’t wanter it down either. For years all I ever heard was a watered down gospel, because it was so watered down I never gave my life to Jesus and surrender because according to the watered down gospel I heard, I didn’t need to. The day someone spoke the truth, it offended the flesh but was music to the soul; I immediately gave my life to Jesus and got born again. We cause more harm than good when we water things down. We are to deliver the 8 foot cut, not 8 and some inches.

            Notice as the chapter goes on, they question how He could even know of Abraham when He wasn’t even 50 years old to which Jesus replied that before Abraham was, I AM. To this they took huge offense and took up stones to through at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple and through the midst of them passed by. He was protected as He walked through the midst of them to leave. He wasn’t afraid to offend them even though it lead to them wanting to stone Him. Today, (in America) all that happens when someone offends someone else is it leads to gossip then normally goes away. Being stoned is obviously much worse than gossip yet we act as if we too will be stoned if we offend anyone with the truth. We shouldn’t aim to seek to offend, but we should aim to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We need to get rid of fear of man so that we can affectively share his whole truth in its perfect form. I encourage you to pray over this with God; if you feel like you are lacking the boldness and confidence to share the word with others without watering it down then cast out the fear of man and ask God to give you the confidence and boldness needed to share His word to others.

 

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