EVER ARRIVING GOD!

John 11:3-25 BSB

So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one You love is sick.” [4] When Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” [5] Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. [6] So on hearing that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was for two days, [7] and then He said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” [8] “Rabbi,” they replied, “the Jews just tried to stone You, and You are going back there?” [9] Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? If anyone walks in the daytime, he will not stumble, because he sees by the light of this world. [10] But if anyone walks at night, he will stumble, because he has no light.” [11] After He had said this, He told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.” [12] His disciples replied, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will get better.” [13] They thought that Jesus was talking about actual sleep, but He was speaking about the death of Lazarus. [14] So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, [15] and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” [16] Then Thomas called Didymus said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.” [17] When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already spent four days in the tomb. [18] Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, a little less than two miles away, [19] and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them in the loss of their brother. [20] So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him; but Mary stayed at home. [21] Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. [22] But even now I know that God will give You whatever You ask of Him.” [23] “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her. [24] Martha replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” [25] Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.

GOD is never late! He is always on time! He is the ever-arriving God! Have you been waiting long for the Lord? Don’t give up; He will arrive at the right time.

John’s account of when Lazarus of Bethany was on his deathbed, and Martha and Mary, his sisters, sent Jesus an urgent message imploring His assistance, tells us that God is punctual, always on time. How can this be, though, when we read that Jesus arrived after Lazarus died, when Jesus stayed where He was? Why did He do that?

Does this mean Jesus can be late? Was He too late to save Lazarus? Would the Lord arrive too late to help and deliver us too, when we need Him?

ABSOLUTELY NOT! THE LORD IS NEVER LATE! HE’S ALWAYS ON TIME!

So many people already think the Lord is late. They have prayed, fasted, and waited but feel that since the Lord did not turn up when they asked, it means He’s late or may not even answer them.

There is a lesson in every adversity, and the process must be completed before the change happens; otherwise, we would find ourselves repeating the process to gain what is not learned but required.

Remember the significance of names? Check out the significance and ironic meaning of Lazarus: Lazarus is synonymous with the Hebrew “Eliezer,” meaning “my God is help.” And God did help! God helps always.

The Lord was aware of Lazarus’s sickness. He mentions it to the disciples and then goes on to proclaim that “the sickness is not unto death.” Why? Yet Jesus made no move to travel to Bethany. He waited two extra days before setting off, timing His arrival to be exactly on the fourth day after Lazarus’ death in verse seventeen. Jesus was at least one day’s journey away from Bethany, and by the time the message reached Him, Lazarus had already died.

The Lord is purposefully intentional in all He does, and the maximum glory of everything always goes to Him alone. If Jesus had arrived “too early,” the Jews would not have seen this event as a miracle because the Jewish tradition believes that the soul of a deceased person lingers behind, hovering over the dead body for three days, desperately trying to get back inside the body.

This introduces the reason why Jesus stayed two days longer. No room for doubt or dispute! He wanted the people to see His power over death, maximizing His glory in verse five.

Some would ask why Jesus didn’t come on time to heal Lazarus. Jesus’ answer in verse fifteen points us again to maximum glory. Healing Lazarus was not in His plan, but that would have happened if He had come too early. This was an occasion to manifest the glorious power of God to man and to establish our faith.

Timing is everything to the Lord according to Ecclesiastes 3. The Lord is never late or too early. The Lord is not slow, declares 2 Peter 3:8-9, and we see that the fullness of God’s time manifested in Exodus 12:40-42: God’s promise of freedom from 430 years of slavery happened on the very last day of those long years. The Lord arrived to deliver Israel when He said He would after 430 years when they most likely thought He wasn’t coming.

It was a miracle to see Lazarus dead, at least for the disciples, as no person had come to announce it to them. It was a great miracle to raise a dead man than to heal a sick man. And it was an even greater miracle to raise one that had been buried for four days, and in whose body putrefaction might have begun to take place, than to raise one that just died.

Don’t give up. God would never be late to help you or too early to miss you. He will arrive on time. He is punctual because time belongs to Him. The Lord is ever arriving.

PRAYER: Father, You are the perfect itme keeper, help me to hold on to your promises with confidence that you will fulfil your word in time in Jesus’s name, amen.

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/womenoflight/episodes/EVER-ARRIVING-GOD-e2u7rtr

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