Now Martha said to Jesus (John 11:21-27), “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
To better understand this scripture, I encourage you to read the whole story of Jesus and the incident surrounding Lazarus’s death and resurrection by the Lord Jesus in John 11.
Read: Are you pushing God away?
However there is a short insight I’d like to deliver to you through the very few lines I have highlighted above. I’ve read them before and each time, the drive gets deeper. This time, that line in .v25 caught my eyes:
“…He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live…”
I wasn’t there to know the context in which Jesus used this. However, I can believe that that statement is applicable even for other forms of death in people’s lives beyond just cessation of breath.
When your passion for God, for souls, for praying, fellowshipping with saints, studying the scriptures, meditation and everything that has to do with God begins to drop, then death is coming in. Remember, that death is the highest form of weakness, wherein nothing has life-power for activity. Sickness is death in a form. Lack and scarcity is death in a way.
Barrenness is death in a way. Repeated failures and inability to rise regardless of your effort is death. All these because you don’t have the life-power within yourself to be active and fruitful no more than a dead man can perceive his favorite meal.
This in itself is painful to even think about. Many of us then console ourselves, like Martha, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” I have been here once before. I believed that things would only get better at the end when Jesus comes. Although this is true, it is not entirely true. Yes, on the last day, there’ll be perfection to replace imperfection. Corruptible swallowed up by incorruptible. Temporal swallowed up by eternal. Death swallowed up by life, and weakness by strength forever. (1John 3:2, 1Cor. 15:41-58)
I bring you good news, that, although there is perfection of all things at the end for those who believe, there is also resurrection of that which is dead now for those who need it. In Versus 25-26 of our opening text, our Lord Jesus stated it plainly.
“I am the Resurrection and I am the Life. If someone believes in Me, if they die, they’ll live again. And if they live, they will not die” (paraphrase mine).
The point here is simply put this way: if as a believer, I become subject to deadness (for whatever reason that may be), there is an available assurance from the base of our Trust, Jesus, that I can tap into and receive life from that deadness.
And if I am not seeing death but death is trying to come, I have the assurance that I can tap into the life power that keeps me above it. This is so that when men are wailing about a casting down, a representation of death, I will say there is a lifting because of the posture I have within the borders of the promises of my Lord Jesus as my resurrection and life eternal.
See this below, Job 22:28-29:
“You will also declare a thing, And it will be established for you; So light will shine on your ways. When they cast you down, and you say, ‘Exaltation will come!’ Then He will save the humble person.”
What great assurance we have in Jesus. If Jesus can’t satisfy, nothing can. Everything is in Him. And His word had been given to both inform us, equip us and remind us of this assurance that we have in Him. And this knowing that, our hope in this life and in the one to come is great. Therefore, do not faint dear child of the Lord. Help is near.
Do you believe in Jesus? If yes, then access is yours. The Resurrection and Life-power is yours. Jesus believe!
Please, rise up this hour and stand on your faith in Jesus, lay claim to His resurrection power into every aspect of your life where death is taking a hold or trying to do so, and command its extinction in the name of Jesus.
I declare over you, live again, in Jesus name, Amen.
James Osayande George lives by the mandate to reveal the liberating truth of God’s word in simplicity and accuracy through a cutting edge teaching ministry.
Having been saved at the young age of thirteen (13) years old through a Divine encounter, he has since dedicated himself to know and serve the Lord with his life.
Best known for his calm voice, James George has ministered in full-time ministry since 2014 within which period he served as one-time resident pastor of Glad Tidings Life Triumphant Church, Kaduna State, Nigeria under his spiritual father and mentor, Pastor Moses Enabulele.
A student of the prestigious Kenneth Hagin’s Rhema Bible Training Center, Nigeria, James George is the author and co-author of numerous published and unpublished manuscripts and poems for blogs and magazines, as well as books including Walking through the Word Devotional (a classic all year round devotional book). Your Journey and God is his first published book. He runs a blog at www.thischariot.wordpress.com
He is the pioneer of G. M. M. Network, a body of believers dedicated to church growth, spiritual development, youth, and women empowerment, as well as outreach to the less privileged. He currently resides in and does his ministry from Lagos State, Nigeria
