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Sunday, 07 March 2010 12:43 |
One of my favorite passages in the entire Bible is:
John 14:1-3:
1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.
2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.
3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
I particularly like the opening words of verse 1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled." At first glance that just sounds like another way of saying, "Don't worry." But it is more than that. It is a mild command: "Do not allow your hearts to be troubled."
The disciples felt they had plenty to worry about in the Upper Room on that long ago night: Jesus had been saying for months that He was going to Jerusalem to die; the hostility of the Jewish leaders was palpable; and then there was Judas' erratic behavior earlier in the evening. Jesus knew that their situation was about to become much, much worse. In just a few hours He would be arrested, tried and murdered. The disciples would be scattered in fear. Their entire world was about to be shattered.
"Do not let your hearts be troubled."
How could Jesus possibly say that? And how could He expect His disciples to carry out that command? For the past 3 years Jesus had demonstrated time and again that He was the Messiah. Emmanuel. "God with us". There was no question He could not answer. No hurt He could not heal. No miracle He could not perform. He had even raised people from the dead! And now, even though His disciples did not believe, He was going to die and rise from the dead Himself. Jesus said "Do not allow yourselves to worry" because He knew the future. He knew everything was going to be all right.
We are in a much better position than the Apostles were. We KNOW that Jesus rose from the dead. We KNOW that He can do all things.
So why are our hearts troubled so often? We worry about the economy, the government, world events and all sorts of disasters and catastrophes. We worry and fret that all we hold dear could be taken away from us tomorrow. But there is no need to worry. Jesus knows the future, remember? He KNOWS that the world is in rotten shape. He knows that people are getting worse and worse. He knows that evil is rampant. And He's not surprised. In fact, He made sure that His inspired writer Paul would tell us about it so that we would not be caught off guard. (Read 2 Timothy 3:1-5).
Jesus isn't fretting. And we should not be either. Because the fact of the matter is we have something truly great to look forward to after this world. And the really great thing is we don't even have to worry about how we are going to get there.
Jesus said He'll come Himself and get us.
So what is there to worry about?
See you soon!
Bill
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