Bringing Glory

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

BRINGING GLORY

John 11:1-6

11:1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." 4 When he heard this, 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."  5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

NIV

This account of raising Lazarus from the dead nearly takes the whole of this chapter yet we cannot take it all in at once. We should see a few truths along the way such as we can see in this first portion. To begin with we are informed of the sweet relationship Jesus had with Martha, Mary and Lazarus. In other accounts we are let in on more of this relationship, but here we are simply told Jesus loved them. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. The truth here is that Jesus loves them; he loves period, even the Pharisees. Sure he speaks the truth to them wanting them to actually see it, although we know they do not, he still loves them as he died for all mankind, so that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. This is what he was saying about Lazarus here. Even though Lazarus was very sick, his sickness would not end in death. As we know the rest of the story, we know exactly what Jesus meant by not ending in death, but his disciples surely did not at that time. Yet several truths are revealed to us here. First we see the reason for Lazarus to experience what he did was so that God would be glorified and that Jesus would be glorified through the life, death and life of Lazarus. We can only imagine the story Lazarus had to tell after his experience in death. It seems today we have a host of people making all sorts of claims and money writing books about their time being dead, but here is a man who actually was dead and was brought back to life, and we have no record of what he said about it. There is a reason, faith.  Second we see the whole of his death experience was to bring glory to God. Should not our lives bring glory to God as well? What good does bringing Glory to God among a bunch of other people who should be bringing glory to God with their lives? The point of the experience of Lazarus was so people would believe. Should we not be living in manner that brings glory to God out in the open, out loud, in front of the world? Should we not be involved with people who do not believe, so they can see the glory of God in our lives? It really does not do much good to show them religion, that is showing them how religious we are, but we should be showing them the glory of God. What does that look like? What does faith in God look like? How does the influence of God on our hearts reflect in our daily lives? Maybe we should be living like we trust God with every aspect of our lives, out loud. That is actually telling people we do, and living as we do. When we are sick, we praise God, when we have what some would call a hardship, we praise God, and not just in church, but in our lives in front of unbelievers. Although it is true that we too shall be raised from the dead, who certainly will bring glory to God, especially when we all rise from the grave on that day we call the rapture, but for now, we need to live so we bring glory to God and glory to Jesus.