It is very important to read the Bible always from the Holy Spirit’s perspective. For he is the author of the Bible. We do this to discern spiritually what he wants us to understand from his point of view and not the world’s.
Having the Spirit’s point of view, we can examine ourselves when reading about those he wrote about as example to follow or not. We also will learn how Jesus responds to those who believe in him and those who do not.
A good example to learn from is the story of Martha and Mary in Luke and John. It teaches about their character and attitude towards Jesus and how they responded to him and how Jesus responded to them.
Luke 10: 38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" 41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
In this story Martha invites Jesus and his disciples to her home for a banquet and there is no mention of her parents or a husband or being a widow only that she has a sister Mary that lives with her. It was their home.
Martha must have been the eldest who took her responsibility to care for her guest seriously especially since she invited Jesus her Lord to her home for a banquet. Mary being younger was not as responsible as her sister not caring to help her, which upset Martha. We all can relate to both this kind of character and attitude in own lives.
Jesus points out to Martha because you have invited me into your home, you should not worry and become upset about peripheral thing to please me or your quest. All Jesus desires is when you invite him in it is to sit and listen to him because that is what will count in heaven and if Mary takes to heart what she hears and accepts his words as God’s truth it will never be taken from her.
We learn that Jesus desires each time you invite him in as you read his word or gather in his name it to listen to him and not be concerned about the outside appearance of things. It is only to sit and listen to him.
We listen by eating the same food that Jesus eats.
John 4: 31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." 33 Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?" 34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
If you are listening to Jesus, he reveals his Father’s will and like him it is do it until it is finished.
In John 11 we learned which sister sat at Jesus feet and listened to him.
John 11: 1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." 4 When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." 5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
We learn that Martha and Mary’s have a brother and Lazarus may have been their younger brother as he never says anything in this story. Being deeply concern of his sickness they reached out to Jesus to come quickly because they knew he could heal him before he dies because He loved them. But that is not what Jesus did.
John 11: 6 Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. 7 Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."
Jesus wanted Lazarus to die.
John 11: 14 So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."
We learn just because Jesus loves us does not mean he will heal us of all our illness he may allow us to die so we can go home to him. Jesus will protect us from the schemes of the devil, but he will allow us to be subject to diseases and the evil that exist in this world. That is why Paul teaches to obey those who enforce the laws because they will protect you and to take medicine to heal you or protect you from diseases as he told Timothy to drink some wine for his upset stomach. God those provide the means to help us in this world.
When Jesus was near to Martha’s home Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
John 11: 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. 21 "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
Here Martha goes out to meet Jesus and proclaims her faith in him as her Lord, as her healer and God’s anointed. Hearing her faith, Jesus responds to her with words of life because of her faith in him.
23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 24 Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." 25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" 27 "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
Martha did the only thing necessary, she sat and listened to Jesus’ teaching as truth. Seeing her faith, Jesus was able to reveal to her the key to eternal life and that is having faith in him. Martha received this truth by acknowledging to Jesus that he was her Savior, that he is the Son of God who has come in flesh.
Now Mary reacted differently when she heard that Jesus was near, she did go out to meet him like Martha but stayed at home mourning the death of her brother. Martha returned home and told Mary, Jesus was asking for her.
John 11: 28 … "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.
Mary responds to Jesus only when it seems he wanted her and not her wanting Jesus. This is how the world responds to being loved by someone that the person who loves me will do or give me what I want. Is this how you see Jesus loving you? That He will do what you want? If you think this way about Jesus, he is no longer the Lord of your life. You have made yourself lord over him.
Those who do this will blame God when things go wrong and not their way. They will blame him for allowing someone they love to die. They do not believe that Jesus is the one who will resurrect and give eternal life to all who believe in him that they will never die.
John 11: 32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
Mary did not express the same faith Martha had in Jesus, but blamed Jesus for allowing her brother to die. We see that Mary did not hold on to Jesus’s teaching during the times she sat at his feet. This is what Paul teaches that there will those who will always be learning God’s word but never acknowledging its truth.
John 11: 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
Jesus was disturbed by their weeping over someone’s death when before them was the source of everlasting life who they did not believe in.
John 11: 34"Where have you laid him?" he asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied. 35 Jesus wept.
Jesus tears was not of empathy for those grieving over the death of Lazarus. Jesus wept because they did not believe he is the giver of eternal life.
Jesus said in John 2:24 that he does not put his trust in people because people but their trust in what concerns people and not what concerns God.
Jesus never saw Lazarus as dead and never to be loved again. Jesus loves those who love him, and he never wants them to suffer spiritual death, but will give them eternal life so that they can be loved by his Father forever.
John 11: 39 "Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days." 40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" 41So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." 43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." 45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.
Upon seeing her brother being resurrected back to life, Mary repented and believed in Jesus as her savior and Lord of life, that all who believe in him will never die which we see Mary’s repentant heart in chapter 12.
John 12: 1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages. " 6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. 7 "Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."
Believing in Jesus, Mary recalled Jesus’ teaching about his own death and resurrection as being true, so she prepared his body for his burial and believing in his resurrection to follow.
I hope you are growing in your faith in Jesus by eating the spiritual food he eats doing his Father’s will and not being the lord over Jesus. Thinking because he loves you, he will do what you want him to.
If Jesus is your Lord, you serve him and not vice versa. You die for Jesus because he already died for you, so you can be with your Father forever.
Do not test God’s love for you.
Be safe in Jesus,
Ps. Glenn