Here is one of the most profound lessons I have learned
and continue to learn day by day.
God is sufficient for me... and can be for you - in every
circumstance.
There was once a man who lived an abnormal life, a
passionate, god fearing, people challenging, radically different life. His name
was John and he devoted his whole life to telling people around him to stop
doing what they knew to be wrong and turn to God.
This lifestyle caught him quite a lot of attention - he
had a large following of people who would go and spread the same message, tell
people about him and he would draw huge crowds, big enough for him to catch the
attention of the political leaders of his time.
John was not afraid to confront the leaders of his time
either - when the king took his own brothers wife for himself John challenged
him on this behaviour which resulted in his false imprisonment. Facing one of
the toughest circumstances imaginable John did what any normal human would do.
He doubted. He asked God
'Are you really enough for me? Are you what I had hoped
for? Will you save us? Will you save me?'
Gods response,
in short was 'yes'
Not long after this the kings new wife demands the head
of John and the king obliges on the basis of peer pressure and John is murdered
in prison.
How is God sufficient in this circumstance? How can I
possibly say that he is enough when he promises salvation yet leaves a devout
follower to die alone at the hands of an evil man?
Let me tell you a second story
A man, God fearing and perfect in all his ways - he never
did anything wrong. Not even once. He was radically different from everyone
around him and he told all around him that he was the way the truth and the
life - he was enough. That through him salvation would come, that eternal life
could be found.
He drew crowds that none had seen the like of before -
people would follow him from town to town to hear him speak and to learn more
about what he had to offer.
One day this man received a message from a man in prison
named John. The message asked
'are you who you say you are? Are you really enough for
me? Are you who I had hoped for? Will you save us? Will you save me?'
The response was 'yes'
But we know that some time later John dies a humiliating,
degrading death.
This man continues on his mission - telling people that
he was the bread of life. The size of the crowds that he commanded made the
political leaders fear because they could not control this man and the
religious leaders hated him for taking away their power so they conspired to
have him killed.
They arrest him and illegally try him in court - they pay
false witnesses to testify against him and they proclaim a death sentence. They
bring him before the king who has to authorise the execution and due to the
pressure of the crowd demanding his death he gives in and authorises the public
execution.
He is stripped naked and pinned up to a piece of wood
with nails through his wrists and eventually drowns as his own blood fills his
lungs.
He brings new definition to humiliation and despair, he
makes John's death look dignified by
comparison.
He is taken down and laid in a tomb.
3 days pass and his followers go to his tomb to mourn and
prepare him for burial but the body is not there.
Then reports come in - He has risen from the dead. scepticism.
Really?
Then he appears among his followers - he shows the holes
in his wrists. belief. He eats with them and explains. He is enough. He is
Jesus. He is the Saviour.
He died for them
but because he is enough death could not hold him. Because he did no wrong he
was able to take punishment for all of them so that when they die they can
stand before God knowing that their wrongs have been paid for and they can
continue on in eternity with God in perfect unity until everything in the past
fades into a pale insignificance. He tells them that they enter into that
eternity the moment that they believe that the sacrifice made for them is
enough. At that point they begin eternal life, though the body may die their
spirit lives on forever.
So how does this mean that God was sufficient for John?
God was sufficient because even though he had moments of doubt John believed
that God was sufficient for him and that belief is credited to him as
righteousness before God which gives him eternal life and therefore eternal hope.
God's sufficiency for you is this: not that he removes
you from the storms of life (so as to leave you immature and naive) but that he
supplies you with himself bringing you into eternity which you can start living
now; which strengthens you to withstand the temporary storms of this life so
you can remain standing eternally.
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not
forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the
death of Jesus, so that
the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. - 2 Corinthians
4 : 8-10
Title font used 'Vaguely Fatal'
