Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; He is risen!  Luke 24:5-6

The stone wasn’t rolled away for Jesus,

it was rolled away for us.  

To enter in. 

To see the miracle of our Lord –

that He was lifted up from death to life. 

 We peer over the shoulders

of those who found that empty tomb

and we rejoice with them

 in the emptiness of it. 

For we thrill to a risen Savior,

the miracle of God’s love.    

Jesus took the pain of sin and death for us. 

He felt the sting,

the throb,

the agony,

of all that was ugly,

dark,

and without God. 

He did what we could never do –

and then He loved us even more.

He made a way for us to receive His love,

His atonement,

His joy. 

Simply by believing.

 May your Easter be filled with remembering,

believing,

and praise for a Savior’s Love! 

He is risen!

In the gospel of John, at the time of the Last Supper, we find some of Jesus’ most compelling words.  He speaks at length, and out of love and compassion – both for His disciples and for all of us yet to come.  (John 17:20) His words are soothing and drawing. 

Jesus explains much, part of which is how to be a follower of His.  It means committing ourselves to His will, His plan, and His purpose.  It requires total devotion to the ways of the Lord and that will mean getting to know Him through scripture and putting into practice what we learn there.  It will mean getting into the mind of Christ. 

But Jesus says we have this, His promise, if we choose Him:  “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.  By this My Father is glorified.”  (John 15:7-8)  Then John echoes that in another of his records found in 1 John 5: 14-15:  “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” 

Therefore, the key to answered prayer is getting into the mind of Christ and that can be a high mountain to climb.  It will come only as we seek Him with every fiber of our being.  We will need to cast off all personal desires until and unless we know they are His desires as well.  It will mean a constant state of self-examination of our loyalty to God.  It will sometimes mean accepting things that make no sense to us at all, and trusting with all we are that His way is perfect and will bring about a greater good than anything we can imagine.  We can do this only when we know with absolute conviction who God is, and firmly and completely believe that God loves us, and that His plans for us are for good and not evil.  (Jeremiah 29:11)

When we learn to do a new thing, such as a sport or art, it requires our setting aside doubt and fears and worries.  We must want that new thing so much that we grasp a sure belief in its accomplishment, and then we set out with passion to achieve it.  It is the same with attaining the mind of Christ and trusting His will.  We must fervently want it to be victorious.   

We can take heart that we are not left alone to achieve this close relationship to the Lord, but have been provided the Holy Spirit, another part of Jesus’ talk with His disciples that night.  Jesus called Him the Helper and the Spirit of truth, and it is through Him we gain the triumph.  Our part is to be zealous in wanting the mind of Christ; the Holy Spirit’s part is in revealing it to us.

Jesus, life is a difficult and hazardous journey.  Sometimes we hit obstacles that obscure the way beyond.  We like to know where we are going, to have some control.  But often that isn’t Your way.  You ask us to walk by faith and not by sight.  On this day, may we grip Your hand more firmly and trust in our hearts that You love us and will never forsake us.  Help us to remember past blessings, to recall how You have answered other prayers and brought us through the floods and the fires.  Pour Your mind into us today that we may cast aside every fear, every doubt, and every worry, and walk by faith.  Yet even then, remember that we are but dust, O Lord, and favor us with glimpses of victory along the way that we may be encouraged.      

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”  Mark 14:3-9 (NIV)

Who was this woman in Mark’s story?  This woman who did something beautiful for Jesus?   The gospels relay two stories of Jesus being anointed by a woman, but with differences, as well as similarities. 

Mark and Matthew (26:6-13) say Jesus’ head was anointed in the home of Simon the Leper, in Bethany.  John (12:1-8) tells the story of Jesus’ feet being anointed, also in Bethany, but in the home of His friends, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.  Were there two anointings of Jesus’ body by a woman?  If so, was it Mary both times?  Or, was there another woman who also sought to comfort the Lord, and as Jesus said, to prepare Him for His burial?

Whatever the case, we know this:  It was an act of love and worship and Jesus called it “beautiful.”  He was being recognized for whom He was, and given the very best the person had, to be poured on His body.  Her eyes were on Jesus – no distractions and no concern for what others might say.   She came to adore the Savior, and to comfort Him in the only way she could. 

It is our instruction from that same Lord, our Jesus, to go out and do kindnesses for others, and to do them in His name.   For He says to us:  “I tell you the truth, whatever you (do) for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you (do) for me.”  Matthew 25:40 (NIV)   

And He, our Jesus, will call these loving acts done in His name — beautiful.

Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called Passover.   And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might kill Him for they feared the people.   Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve.   So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray Him to them.   And they were glad, and agreed to give him money.   So he promised and sought opportunity to betray Him to them in the absence of the multitude.   Luke 22:1-6 (NKJV)

Here we have a defining list of the sins of man.  We see the hold of money, the lust for power and fame, the ugliness of jealousy, the loftiness of self, and a plan of darkness.  So dark it had to be developed in secrecy.  There is nothing good here, only evil, coming from prideful arrogance. 

With focus on themselves, these men missed the very magnificence of the Lord God Almighty.  The long-awaited Messiah was here in their midst and they were so tuned into themselves, His truth and glory went unseen.  All their study had been for nothing, it seems.  And Judas, the one who had walked closely with Jesus for three years, witnessed His miracles, observed His love, and heard Who had sent Him, gave it all away for a few silver coins.  Had the blindness of Judas’ heart been of his eyes instead, he would have known not one glimmer of light. 

These, the privileged, had handed over wisdom and precious opportunity for personal increase.  So centered on themselves and their gain for things of the world, they missed the greatest gain of all.  These men could have been proclaiming His majesty and power, had they not been proclaiming their own. 

And Judas allows Satan in.  Judas had been chosen by the Lord as a friend and disciple, yet Judas chose greed.  He had not clothed himself in the riches of Jesus’ grace, nor put on the armor of holy righteousness, but stood naked in human self-indulgence.  He made himself readily available for Satan to take control.    

It is a picture of what happens to humankind when we take our eyes off Jesus and hunger after the world instead.  We will always have an object of worship, so if not Jesus, it will be ourselves in some way.  

These priests and scribes, who were puffed up with arrogance, betrayed their titles and betrayed their people.  They fell deep into the pit of conceit and foolishness.  Judas traded in three years of close companionship with the Savior and eternal life, for about a month’s wages. 

We can debate long and hard over their behavior, but it will change nothing.  What they did is history.  It serves only as a reminder of the forces always at odds.  It calls us to examine ourselves and determine where we stand.  Are we for God – or against Him?  What is our testimony today?  What will our story be when it is but a record of history?      

Father, as we walk toward this Easter season, teach us anew the lessons of Your Son’s journey.  May His work on earth not be lost in accounts we have heard so many times that we lose sight of their meaning.   May we prepare our hearts for fresh blessings of wisdom and truth.   Holy Spirit, take us deeper in our understanding of the Holy Scriptures.  As we breathe them in, may they be established in our lives, that our records will reveal we chose Jesus, and walked with Him all the way to heaven’s gates.                          

Oswald Chambers, in his devotional book, MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST, reveals an important piece of intercessory prayer that I am afraid I miss much of the time. He says “Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray.” Chambers asks, “Are we so worshipping God that we rouse ourselves up to lay hold on Him so that we may be brought into contact with His mind about the ones for whom we pray?*

When prayers have gone unanswered for a length of time, I do seek God’s mind, asking if I am praying correctly, and if not, how He would have me to pray. But to do this with every individual that asks for intercessory prayer – I embarrassingly admit I do not. Rather, when I am asked to pray, I usually stop right at that moment and pray as that person has requested, and I continue to petition in the same manner after we’ve parted.

Philippians 2:5 says “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” 1 John 5:14-15 says “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him.”

The prayer that never fails is when we pray according to the mind of Christ Jesus. We need to soak in that truth. We need to ingrain it in our thought pattern so that we will automatically seek His mind on every matter of prayer. God wants the absolute best for each of His children and none of us are wise enough to know what that is. He alone can see every issue and implication in its entirety. The victorious prayer is the one guided by God.

Living intimately with God means living in worshipful relationship and accepting His will over our own every time. We are to conform to Him, not Him to us.

Jesus, may I remember the privilege and the importance of worship before I pray.  As I worship You, reveal to me Your mind for the person of intercession.  Then, may the precious blessings of Your love and Your will be poured out on those I bring before Your throne.

*MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST, devotional reading for March 30.
Scriptures from NIV translation (italics mine).