ESOCS Devotional 11 June 2022
TEXT: JOHN 11:1-44
MEMORY VERSE: “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”John 11: 26 KJV
0 And the apostles, when they had returned, told Him all that they had done. Then He took them and went aside privately into a deserted place belonging to the city called Bethsaida. 11 But when the multitudes knew it, they followed Him; and He received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need of healing. 12 When the day began to wear away, the twelve came and said to Him, “Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted lace ”
Jesus Christ alone is “the resurrection and the life”. We clearly see that not only in His miracles of raising the dead during the course of his earthly ministry but supremely in His own rising again on the third day to live “after the power of an endless life”. As a result, our whole lives can be characterized by hope.
Jesus presents hope concerning those who have died in Him. He told Martha, “… he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live”. This is a hope that comforts us with respect to those who, as believers in Christ, have passed on before us. When death has taken away someone we love, our sorrow is real. We miss them and we long for their fellowship again. We genuinely grieve. Jesus Himself knew what that grief felt like. But because Jesus Himself is “the resurrection and the life”, our grief is experienced in the context and anticipation of future joy and victory. The apostle Paul wrote to his fellow believers in the city of Thessalonica because many of their loved ones had died for their faith through persecution. He acknowledged their sorrow; and then he brought them tremendous comfort and assurance about their loved ones (I Thess. 4:13– 18).
Jesus presents hope concerning those of us who live. He not only meant this hope to be a comfort to us when we lose a beloved one in the Lord by death. It’s also meant to give us, who are living, hope even while we live. Jesus also told Martha, “and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (v 26). Literally “…He shall in no way die unto eternity.” as Christians, we live our lives with the recognition that death may come to us at any time; but we also live with the recognition that death is in no way permanent. We will in no way die unto eternity. Physical death for the Christian should not be something which frightens us to our core. For those who believe in Jesus will simply go from life here to life in the paradise of God; it will be going from this world of sin and death to live in a world with neither sin nor death. And so, we live in hope of eternal life (2 Cor. 4:16-5: 1).
There is a new kind of life that starts even now that does not run out even at death. Jesus imparts new life today. He came to impart new life by giving us His Spirit. Like Lazarus, we are dead, what the Scriptures call void of God’s Spirit. Christ came to make us alive, securing forgiveness through His death and the operation of His Spirit to give us new life, a new heart with new loves and a new capacity to be all God envisions us to be as human beings made in His image and likeness. With Christ, you never really die. Without Christ, you never truly live. He is the resurrection and life, our only hope in death; our only hope for life.
- Do you believe that Jesus can help you with your troubles today?
- Lord, I believe you are the resurrection and life. Help me to hope on you alone.
Read Other ESOCS Devotional here
FURTHER READING: Numbers 22:1–15; Deuteronomy 10:1–11; Revelation 7:9–17
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ESOCS Devotional 11 June 2022
