Jesus With Us

Jesus wept (John 11:35). 

This morning, I understood that in a way that I never have before. I look around and I see person after person, tortured by the lies of our enemy. Person after person who doesn’t know who they are in Christ. Who accepts fear, anxiety, and unbelief. 

My heart was literally aching for the pain people are suffering as a result of not truly knowing who they are and not knowing what they carry in the Kingdom of God. Yet most of all, for not truly knowing our Father.

I’ve tried to be there for every person as this crisis continues to unfold: people with disease in their body, people who are overcome with fear or anxiety, people who don’t believe the power of the spoken word over their lives. The list goes on and on, and as I was reflecting this morning, a thought came to me: “This must be what Jesus felt”. Knowing that He knew truth intimately because of his connection with our Father. He saw people come to him in droves, needing what He carried. Needing a touch to be healed. Most of all, desperately seeking the love that He was. 

Jesus spoke to his disciples at one point when they were unable to cast out a spirit from a boy and said: “Oh, faithless generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?” (Mark 9:19) I believe that Jesus understood this weariness and how it felt to know people were suffering and needing Him to be their savior. And yet…He couldn’t be everywhere at the same time. There was only so much He could do in his humanity. 

So therefore, He came to each of us who accept Him. So that He wouldn’t have to walk with us each individually in the flesh, but so that He could provide something for us that would empower each of us to walk in truth and light the way He would have encouraged us to do if he was still in the flesh with us.

What is going on today still mirrors what happened with Jesus when He walked the earth. There were those who walked with Him, day in and day out. They knew him, spent time with Him, heard from Him. And yet we see story after story of those same individual’s unbelief and lack of faith. We can see this in Christians today also. Even with the intimate gift of the Holy Spirit, guiding us day in and day out, there remains unbelief. We have been given the most precious teacher. One who walks with each of us in our own temple. 

Let us each use this gift and walk in a manner of honoring this gift. No matter what is going on around us, we should need less and less saving. He’s already saved us. How many more times do we need Him to do what He has already done? As Christians, we should be the light to the unbelieving world. But as believers? Recognize you already have a savior. Choose Him instead of fear, anxiety, and unbelief.

Interestingly, in Mark 9:19, it was the disciples who were unable to cast the spirit out of the boy and yet Jesus wasn’t just speaking to them. He spoke to an entire faithless generation. In the Greek, the word for ‘faithless’ here actually means untrustworthy. Jesus could not trust an entire generation of people. Why? Because they lacked faith and therefore He had to suffer toward each of them.

Imagine how tiring it must be, as a man, to understand that your hands are tied because people can't see. To know truth, and more accurately to BE truth and yet know that people cannot see it and are perishing (or more accurately, cut off) for that lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). The Hebrew word here is “haadaat”, meaning wisdom and discernment. While this Scripture is often quoted on its own, there is an important follow-up to this. The Lord follows by saying “because YOU have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as my priests” (Hosea 4:6). This may sound harsh, but how can the Lord have priests serving Him if they are not serving His just and true purpose? Therefore, the people’s lack of discernment and wisdom is a choice. There is a decision made to reject this understanding and with that rejection comes a ‘cutting off’ from the Lord and from serving as a priest under Him. In other words, there is no power because there is no congruence and acceptance of His wisdom. 

We are told that we should ASK for wisdom if we lack it: “if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5). There is no discrimination here. We ask, He gives. We choose not to ask? He honors our choice. Yet He cannot be untrue to His own nature through us. Therefore, if we are not operating in His wisdom, we cannot operate in His power, either.