Raising Lazarus (Daily Devotional)

Greetings and welcome to Living Supernaturally. Thank you so much for giving us another opportunity to come together, minister God’s word and spend a few moments in prayer. This week, we are looking at various miracles that Jesus did during His earthly ministry. Today, we will look at raising Lazarus. John chapter 11, verses 43 and 44, ‘Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.’ Scholars describe the raising of Lazarus as the seventh and final sign or miracle in the book of John. As we can see, Jesus saved the best for the last. Lazarus me Jesus many times, the two of them were friends. Jesus and His disciples had often stayed in the home of Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. During Jesus’ delay, Lazarus died. From our human perspective, none of this makes sense. Jesus loves and He is our healer. Jesus is kind and caring. The choice to not come back seems to go against everything the disciples knew about their Rabbi. Jesus can never go against His character. So, there must be a more significant reason as to why Jesus didn’t go immediately to heal his friend, Lazarus. Lazarus had now been dead for 4 days, long enough for everyone to know that he was certainly dead. But Jesus told them to open the tomb away. When He commanded Lazarus to come out, the dead man came back to life and walked out of the tomb. Lazarus came out of the tomb not as a zombie, but as a living and breathing human being. His sickness, death, burial and restoration of life was used by God to bring faith into the lives of His disciples and those around. Lazarus’ death and resurrection were like a dress rehearsal for Jesus’ own death and resurrection. This is an astonishing miracle but it shows us that Jesus was more powerful than death itself. It shows us that Jesus’ power and authority was beyond our natural understanding. This story acts like a preview for the even more important story of Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus points forward to that event when He says to Maratha, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.’ In our skeptical, post-modern age, this may seem like a story that is embellished by John to help sell people to the idea of following Jesus, but this miraculous story is real just like other signs in the book of John, it is meant to point to a deeper truth about Jesus and His ministry. In Jesus, not even death itself can defeat us. If we are in Christ, we will have eternal life and victory over death no matter what we face today. Let us pray, Father, we thank you for your power. We thank you that when you said Lazarus come forth, you showed the enemy that you hold the keys of death and hell. We thank you that we stand victorious in your presence. We pray that as your children, we will walk in victory, that your anointing will break chains, we thank you that we can trust in you, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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