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Too
Good to Be True
Do you ever wonder if God really wants to help you
out when you’re in trouble? When
you pray for His help or healing, do you believe God desires to answer
your prayer? Maybe you’ve
been taught that God uses sickness and trials to punish you for things you’ve
done wrong. You may have even
asked this question:
Does
God really care about me? Does
He really want to help someone like me?
According to the Bible, the answer is: YES!
God wants to help you. In
fact, I’ll go so far as to say that God is longing to help you, heal you
from your physical or emotional pain, and give you an awesome life!
I think one of the best ways to learn about God’s
feelings and intentions for us is to look at the life of Jesus.
Jesus Himself said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the
Father.” (John 14:9) Also,
in Hebrews 1:3 it states: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and
the exact representation of his being…” This means that if you want to
know what God is like, look at Jesus.
This may seem like an obvious point, but unfortunately most people’s
perception of God is NOT taken from studying the life of Jesus, but from
their own experiences with their fathers or with religious leaders.
In
looking at the life of Jesus, we see a Man who’s daily activities
included healing sick people, delivering those tormented by the devil,
relieving suffering, and raising the dead.
Jesus was very kind to people, especially “sinners”
who were living rough lives. Instead
of condemning them, He offered them something better: eternal life in
heaven with Him. He showed
them the way out of their darkness and misery by loving them, healing
them, and showing them the way to live and the way to God.
What does this tell us about the character of God?
Many people accuse God of being mean, of punishing people with
sickness, of not being compassionate.
Many people raise their fists to the air and say, “God, how
can you hurt me like this!!”
There’s no doubt that the world is a difficult
place to live. But God
didn’t create it that way; in fact, He created it perfect.
But with the entrance of sin and evil into the world, it became a
hostile place, a land full of misery and sorrow, and death.
God, who is full of love, sent Jesus to earth to rescue us from the
power of evil, and to set us free from sin.
When Jesus showed up on earth, He saw great misery…A
widow still grieving her husband’s death… A man covered with leprosy…
The Bible states that when Jesus met a large crowd that was waiting for
Him, He felt deep compassion on them, because “they were like sheep
without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34). They
were wandering, directionless and suffering.
Many were sick or tormented. They
were living in darkness, and in bondage to sin.
Some of you probably know the story of Lazarus, the
brother of Mary and Martha, and a friend of Jesus.
(You can read about it in John 11.)
When Lazarus became ill, Mary and Martha sent for Jesus, because
they had already seen Him do many miracles of healing. But Jesus didn’t show up in time, and Lazarus died and had
been buried for four days before He arrived. Imagine how Mary and
Martha must have felt. They
knew Jesus had the power to heal their brother, but now it was too late. Their grief must have been overwhelming. This was even more
of a crushing blow because they had held out hope that Jesus would heal
him.
When Jesus showed up on the scene, both sisters
expressed their frustration and anger to Him.
“If you had been there, our brother would not have died.” Scripture says that when Jesus saw them and their friends
weeping, He was deeply troubled in spirit, and wept. Another translation states that he “became angry.”
What was upsetting Jesus?
I believe that it was watching his friends suffer.
I believe that Jesus was upset and angry, seeing the torment and
pain inflicted upon human beings through Satan, sickness and death.
Jesus then called Lazarus forth from the grave, and
he came out, still wrapped in grave clothes.
NOW imagine how Mary and Martha felt!
What
Jesus did for them was too good to be true!!
They must have felt like they were dreaming.
I’m sure people watching this were not just surprised - they were
flabbergasted, shocked, probably almost scared.
This is a power we’ve never seen or imagined before!
Mind-blowing, unbelievable power. WOW!
I believe that one of the main things about Jesus was
that He was constantly blowing people’s minds doing impossibly wonderful
miracles for them. It was an
everyday occurrence for the disciples to see blind eyes seeing, and deaf
ears hearing. The things
Jesus did for people were too good to be true!
I have to say that this has been the case in our
lives as well. We have had
such miracles happen to us that we felt like we were dreaming.
We’ve actually said, “I can’t believe something this good is
happening to me.” This
is God’s intent – to deliver you when you’re in trouble, and do
better things for you than you could ever imagine!
If your life seems in a terrible mess already – if your “Lazarus”
(marriage, family, health, finances) is already in the tomb, remember that
Jesus can raise your circumstances from the dead just as He raised
Lazarus!
When you start getting discouraged or wondering if
God really wants to help you, read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John in the New Testament. Think
about the life of Jesus, and realize that God loves you and wants to help
you. When you pray, ask God
to do “more than you can ever ask or imagine” in your life (Ephesians
3:20). And God will surely
answer your prayer!
GOD LOVES YOU!
Kurt and Marla Johnson
We welcome your comments or questions.
Email us at joministries@f2s.com.
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