The Search for Lazarus

“He s not dead, he is only sleeping, he can easily be awoken with just the right shove, the right nudge. Be very wary in your search for Lazarus”

I have been searching for a long time now, this search for Lazarus. He was my friend, the very best of them. He knew me inside out, just as I knew him, in my earlier years, we had spent so much time together and we were literally one. I am not too sure when I lost him, but I do know it has been a while and I have combed this earth searching for him. Been to many different churches, come across many different doctrines, I have come across so many people who knew him, knew of both of us together and where sincerely shocked that we were not together. Most times the people that knew us together had last seen us together, other times, the people that didn't suggested ways and means of getting him back. Some methods were downright shocking, others I closed my ears to, the ones that seemed somewhat reasonable, I tried. With time however, I found myself trying the downright shocking and listening to things I would have closed my ears to. I met false teachers, moved with false leaders, talked to people who were so far gone they didn't know who they were so how would they know where to find my friend and brother Lazarus. I searched for so long, so hard and so wide, up till today.

I just realised however that I and Lazarus were one, in more than one sense. We were one and the same. You ask how? I had been dead in sin for so long, doing the things that killed me spiritually and prepared me for a greater death after and Christ saved me. Just like He did so long ago over the tomb of Lazarus, He stood over the tomb that was my life, my dead sinful life, pronounced me forgiven and proclaimed that I come out. All I have been doing all along is search for that sinful nature. In my search for Lazarus, I had come across all sorts, people, information, temptations, you call it, I saw it, you tell it, I experienced it, all for a notion, a belief that I had all along inside of me. I am not dead, I am not sleeping either. I am alive because He proclaimed it so, I search no more because He lives in me. Lazarus my friend, my brother, I search no more for you.

You were dead in sins and your sinful desires were not yet cut away,
Then He gave you a share in the very life of Christ, for he forgave all your sins,
He blotted out the charges proved against you, the list of his commandments
You had not obeyed. He took this list of sins and destroyed it by nailing it.
Nailing it to Christ's cross. By this, He took away Satan's power to accuse you of sin,,
and God openly displayed to the whole world Christ's triumph at the cross,
Where your sins were taken away (Col 2:13-15) God openly displayed YOU!!!

Shalom

Lessons from Japan

"And yea, though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" Psalm 23:4

When I heard of the events in Japan, the quake, the tsunami and the radio-activity, I was in shock. If there was ever a word that could describe all those events in one word then it would be this "Overkill". Just any of the one would have been enough, instead they had all three.

Any other country, any other place the news may have been filled with stories of refugees trooping out of the country to neighbouring countries, not in Japan. I came across an article last week, that described the attitude of the people of Japan after the events. It is described as a shame to run from the current events happening in that country. A shame regardless of if you are a foreigner or a citizen of Japan. Everyone is expected to stay and fight in their struggle for survival.
In another event, a man braved a tsunami, to take his boat out to sea, his reason? To ensure that the people of the island he lived in could have a way to get off their island when the storm passed. One man on a boat, braved a tsunami and survived. Where there others? Maybe, but no one else made it except him. Today his boat was key to saving countless lives.
What is the point of this, what are the lessons I take from this?

The discipline enforced in the lives of the Japanese, is one that is so deep that regardless of the situation, it always shines through. Looking at the reactions of the Japanese to recent events and comparing it to similar events around the globe and the reactions, one can see a difference. Isn't that something that should shine out in the lives of Christians? No not discipline but godliness.

We all have our individual battles we fight in our lives, at work, at home, school, church, on the roads we walk or drive down. Sometimes we fall, sometimes we fail, sometimes we succeed, other times we give up. We choose to run and be safe when we could stand for our rights, our lives, we choose to defer to tomorrow what can be done today, we choose to ask people to step in for tasks we could handle by ourselves. In summary we hand over the control of our lives to things, people and powers that by right, have no right to our lives. Point is, it is your life to live, no one else, you were born into it for a reason, for a purpose and as a Christian, NOTHING, should change that focus. We are soldiers, ambassadors for a greater purpose, a higher calling and although we battle against principalities and powers, we have One in us that is greater than any one outside of us.

Who/What can separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39

If you are saved and won't fight for yourself, fight for the ones still lost or even better fight for the ones yet unborn

My heart goes out to the people of Japan.
Live strong