John 11:28-32
After Martha said these things, she went back to her sister Mary. she talked to Mary alone and said, "The Teacher is here. He is asking for you." When Mary heard this, she stood up and went quickly to Jesus. He had not yet come into the village. He was still at the place where Martha met Him. The Jews who were in the house comforting Mary saw her get up and leave quickly. They thought she was going to the tomb to cry there. So they followed her. Mary went to the place where Jesus was. When she saw Him, she bowed at His feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
1 John 2:27
Christ gave you a special gift. You still have this gift in you. So you don't need anyone to teach you. The gift He gave you teaches you about everything. It is a true gift, not a false one. So continue to live in Christ, as His gift taught you.
1 John 2:24-25
Be sure that you continue to follow the teaching you heard from the beginning. If you do that, you will always be in the Son and in the Father. And this is what the Son promised us - eternal life.
We need to stay in Christ. It's very easy to get distracted; to look around at the pain or pleasures of life. We need to be intentional about going to God. Not just go to Him whenever we FEEL like it but make it a point to meet with Him.
I'm in a storm right now and when I get like this, it gets really hard to pray. I don't want to pray because I feel like I can't. My prayers don't come out eloquent or even smart sounding and it grates on my nerves. However, I can no longer allow that to stop me from communicating with my Heavenly Father. So I've been pressing to pray. I've even been letting God know how annoying my prayers sound and I ask Him for help. I know that prayer is vital: It's my connection with God that I need most in the world and afterlife.
Mary and Martha understood this when their brother, Lazarus died. Do you really think that they wanted to see Jesus. They were hurt that God didn't show up when their brother was sick and heal him. That, instead, their brother had to die. They could have shooed Jesus away or they could have ignore God because of their pain. Instead, they took their pain straight to Jesus. Instead of letting it stop them, they went straight to Jesus Christ with everything. Mary bowed before him and said, "If you have been here, my brother would not have died."
That sounds like a lot of our prayers, doesn't it?
God, if you were here, I wouldn't have gone through this. Or like the world says, "If God is real, then why is there so much pain in the world?"
God is real but we block ourselves from seeing Him. We take our pain and either stuff it deep down or we run to pleasure to escape it. When God is standing at the gate, waiting for us to move our pride and come to Him.
John knew this, too, that is why He writes to us believers and tells us to stay in Christ. That God gave us a gift: its precious and it saves us and it teaches us to remain in Christ. He tells us to cling to the truth and continue following Christ. The time is near that everything is passing away and a separation is happening. Those with the gift, Christ blessed us with will rise up. We're going to shine and everyone is seeing God in us. We must stand strong and remain in Christ.
We can't afford to be distracted right now.
Because when Christ comes back, I personally want to be ready and excited for it.
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At His Feet
SpiritualLately we can all get a little like Martha: we worry a lot and strive to reach that scale of perfection. It wears us down and saps the joy out of our hearts. Times like that, I know I need to be like Mary Magdalene, who sat at Jesus feet and let His...
