I thought I would share the devotional I shared Thursday morning with my big girls. I had planned to talk about God's love after several of the events of the week. And then Wednesday afternoon 3 of our girls decided they wanted to leave. They were of age and able to make this decision. So their father came and picked them up. It was unexpected and it made quite a few of us a little sad. I spoke to one of the girls in charge about her tears (She said "I NEVER cry. And this makes me want to cry.") I shared with her she cries because she loves. And she cares.
This is what I shared Thursday morning:
This morning I want to talk to you about a verse that many
of you have probably read . You can
probably memorize it right now if you don’t know it already. It is very short.
John 11:35 Jesus wept.
Jesus lloro.
That’s all the verse.
The shortest verse in the Bible.
This is the story: Jesus was told that his friend Lazarus
died. Jesus travelled to Lazarus’ grave four days later.
Jesus saw Lazarus’ sister, friends, and family crying.
They were upset that Jesus didn’t come and heal Lazarus. That Jesus didn’t come sooner when he knew
that Lazarus had died. Jesus was
standing there looking at all the people and he wept. He didn’t cry out loud like some people do,
making a big scene. (insert here me making loud crying sounds like "Boooo HOOOO HOOO" to which they all laughed and I said "You know what I mean?") But he quietly wept.
I can imagine what Jesus looked like as he stood there and had tears in his
eyes and running down his face.
I don’t like to cry.
I don’t like to have people see me cry.
I don’t want people asking me “why are you crying?” Sometimes it is too
hard. I am too sad. Sometimes I cry because my heart is full of
joy and happiness. Sometimes I cry in
church when I am worshipping the Lord in a song. Sometimes I cry when I am praying. Sometimes I cry when I feel so loved and I
cannot understand how someone can love me so much. Sometimes I cry when I see
again how much God loves ME. Sometimes I
cry when I am mad. But I don’t like people to see me cry when I
am sad or mad. Sometimes I feel it makes
me look weak. But this is wrong. It is not weakness.
I know many of you are like this. I have seen it. I have seen that you are like this, I saw it
this week. I have seen you cry because
you were mad. I have seen you cry
because you were sad. I have cried this
week because God surprised me with good things. I went to my house and I cried yesterday after our girls left because I will
miss them. (Insert here that I actually started to CRY as I said this… I guess the Holy Spirit knows I needed to show the girls I meant what I said. And at this point they were all listening, but after I started to cry they REALLY listened. ha) I want you to know that it is okay to cry. Jesus did it. We can too.
Do you know why Jesus cried?
Do you think He was sad because
Lazarus died? Jesus knew that He would
go raise him from the dead. It wasn't because Lazarus was dead. Jesus was sad because he knew that sin is in this
world. Sin causes death. And he is sad that Lazarus had to die because
sin is in this world. He was sad because
he knew Lazarus’ family was missing Lazarus because he had been dead for FOUR
days.
So Jesus wept because he LOVED Lazarus. And because he loves us- the people who have
to live in the world with death and dying and sin. And he wants us to live in
his victory. And he wept because his heart was broken for this broken world.
We cry because we love.
We love people and then they disappoint us. We love people who leave. Sometimes we love team members who leave. Sometimes it is our friends. Sometimes it is our families who visit us and
have to go back home. Sometimes we cry
because we miss our family. Even if we
never see them.
We cry because we love.
Jesus cried because he loved Lazarus.
He loves us. He still does. Do you believe he loves you? Yormany talked about this the other day. Vanessa talked about God calling us by a name
only He calls us. You. Are. Loved.
Do you believe it? If you believe
this one thing then you won’t need to ever worry about what anyone thinks.
If the God of the
Universe tells you that HE loves you then what else is important? Even if everyone else hates us, dies, or
leaves us. God- the Almighty Father
loves us. He loves ME. Do I believe this? Do I live each day like I believe it?
Isaiah 43:4 says “You are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you.”
You are precious and honored. He loves you.
Do you believe Him?
Ephesians 1:4 says He chose you. In love he adopts us as children. He gives us grace. He redeems us.
He choses us to be his when we trust Him as our savior.
Do you believe Him?
(I understand the theological difficulties with what I said about Ephesians 1. But for simplicity I just said it like I did. Another day I will discuss further complexities and richness of Ephesians 1) 🙂
Be His.
andi
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