What Was He Thinking?

The story of the resurrection of Lazarus is in John 11. Jesus was a day's walk from Lazarus' home in Bethany. His sisters sent Him word that Lazarus was sick.


vs 6--When He had heard that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where He was.

vs 7--Then after that He said to His disciples, Let us go unto Judaea again.

vs 14--Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

Something happens to you when you spend time in God's presence. Your doubts begin to fade. Your joy in answered prayed begins to rise on the inside of you. And, you begin to see things in a different light. You see things through a God-light.

Mary, Martha and Jesus' disciples thought that Lazarus' death was the end. That was the normal thing. You get sick and some sicknesses bring your death. Then you go out and have a tearful burial.

Jesus was around a lot of people that died. He had seen and endured death just like everybody else did.  But this was different and this story would have a different ending.

Let me say this, first. Jesus did not just go throughout the land raising the dead any time He felt like it. That was never God's plan for Him or for anybody. And, surely, not everybody in the land wanted to be healed either. Some people just wanted to stay sick. So, it was God's plan for those that wanted to stay sick to let them just stay sick if they wanted to.

When you spend time with God in prayer and God finds that He can trust you, He will send you on special missions. There were a lot of people in that area at that time that were demon possessed. But, God sent Jesus and His disciples across a storm-tossed sea to a graveyard to minister to one man and then come back. He stopped Jesus outside of Nain to raise a widow's son in the middle of a funeral procession. God also urged Jesus to stay put for a couple of days before He left for Bethany.

What was Jesus thinking? Jesus knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if He waited on His Father, His Father would give Jesus the right instruction at the right time. Jesus knew that if He was obedient to His Father's command that He would be very successful and God would work miraculously through Him.

If you'll read through the whole account, you'll find that there never was a doubt in Jesus' mind that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. His faith was based on His open and ongoing relationship with His Father.

As we consistently pray and seek God and His will for our lives, there will come a calm knowing way down inside of us that God is in control. We will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is taking the right steps at the right time. We will have the calm assurance that as we wait on God's answers He will answer in a fashion that will bring glory to His name and people will be able to see the Hand of God at work.

Jesus was thinking all during his two day stay and his one day walk to Bethany that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. He pictured it in His mind every time He thought about it. NOT ONCE did Jesus ever picture Himself calling Lazarus out of the grave and failing.

Not once did Jesus picture Himself hanging on the cross and NOT coming out of the empty tomb. Not once did He picture Himself laying hands on people and them NOT being healed. Not once did He see Himself being unsuccessful at what His Father had instructed Him to do. And there we have the great clue to His secret.

Jesus stayed in God's presence until He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that He had heard a command from His Father. He decided early in His life that if He was ever going to accomplish the things that the Word of God said that He would do, He had to have an up-to-date experience with His Father.

The same goes for us. If we want revival, if we want a God-change, if we want to make a difference in the area that we live in then we need to have an on fire, up-to-date relationship with the Father. Now let's get busy and get one.