In the days before JESUS was captured, tried, beaten, crucified and buried in the tomb, He spent time warning and preparing His disciples for what was to come. He told them exactly what was going to happen to Him and that He would rise from the dead. In Luke from our Spoken Word Bible Reading Plan for today, we see that the women went to prepare His body after Passover Celebration. When they arrived at the tomb, they found the stone had been rolled away and the body of JESUS was gone! Look at verses 4-8:
4 And while they were perplexed and wondering what to do about this, behold, two men in dazzling raiment suddenly stood beside them. 5 And as [the women] were frightened and were bowing their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you look for the living among [those who are] dead? 6 He is not here, but has risen! Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee 7 That the Son of Man must be given over into the hands of sinful men (men whose way or nature is to act in opposition to God) and be crucified and on the third day rise [from death]. 8 And they remembered His words.
Notice that the angels reminded the women of what JESUS Himself had told them to expect. And when they reminded them, THEY REMEMBERED! But when these same women went to report what had happened to the apostles, the apostles did not believe! Verses 9-11:
9 And having returned from the tomb, they reported all these things [taken together] to the eleven apostles and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who reported these things to the apostles. 11 But these reports seemed to the men an idle tale (madness, feigned things, nonsense), and they did not believe the women.
Peter ran to the tomb to see, and the two men on the way to Emmaus actually walked and talked with JESUS on their way. They all doubted at some point in those couple of days! When you walk in daily fellowship with the LORD, you will find yourself KNOWING things about Him that you learned only as one who walking in communion with Him! Things that cannot be taught, but must be absorbed through feasting on His Word! Today's "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers addresses this very thing!
The Light That Fails
We all with open face
beholding…the glory of the Lord. — 2 Corinthians 3:18
A servant of God must stand so
much alone that he never knows he is alone. In the first phases of Christian
life disheartenments come, people who used to be lights flicker out, and those
who used to stand with us pass away. We have to get so used to it that we never
know we are standing alone. “All men forsook me:…notwithstanding the Lord stood
with me” (2 Timothy 4:16-17). We must build our faith, not on the fading light,
but on the light that never fails. When “big” men go we are sad, until we see
that they are meant to go; the one thing that remains is looking in the face of
God for ourselves.
Allow nothing to keep you from looking
God sternly in the face about yourself and about your doctrine, and every time
you preach see that you look God in the face about things first, then the glory
will remain all through. A Christian worker is one who perpetually looks in the
face of God and then goes forth to talk to people. The characteristic of the
ministry of Christ is that of unconscious glory that abides. “Moses wist not
that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him.”
We are never called on to parade
our doubts or to express the hidden ecstasies of our life with God. The secret
of the worker’s life is that he keeps in tune with God all the time.
Keep yourself 'in tune' with Holy Spirit and you cannot fail! AMEN! Here is Hillsong with "I Surrender":
Shalom in Him!
