Showing posts with label Genre- Bible Study. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Genre- Bible Study. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The Simplified Guide: Paul's Letters to the Churches by David Hazelton

Tour Date: December 12th

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It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!



Today's Wild Card author is:


and the book:

Deep River Books (September 5, 2013)

***Special thanks to Emily Woodworth for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Like Paul, David Hazelton's professional background is in the law and business. He is a senior partner in a law firm in Washington, D.C., one of the nation's five largest firms. Dave's passion is teaching Sunday School and leading Bible studies in his home, church, and workplace. He serves as an elder at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church.

Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Paul wrote to "all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 1:2). Far from works of abstract theology, his letters provide practical instruction to people without any special theological training or educational credentials––regular people like you and me. In The Simplified Guide, David Hazelton collects Paul’s instructions on specific issues as faithfully and completely as possible. Rather than promoting a particular interpretation, Hazelton guides readers to make their own observations about applying Paul's instructions to their lives.


Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 216 pages
Publisher: Deep River Books (September 5, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 193775684X
ISBN-13: 978-1937756840


AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

 PART I: RIGHT BELIEFS

Paul explains the essentials of the gospel message of salvation in simple and straightforward terms. Rather than focusing on a rigid set of rules, or a detailed set of rituals, or a complex system of theology, Paul focuses on the person of Jesus Christ, his death on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead. If we understand the gospel correctly, everything else will follow. Before we worry about any other issue, Paul wants us to under­stand the gospel in all of its clarity, beauty and majesty.
We therefore begin in chapter 1 with Paul’s explanation of this pure and simple gospel. Due to its central importance, Paul issues strong warnings against any additions to or subtractions from this gospel as discussed chapter 2. While insisting on strict faithfulness to the essentials of the gospel, chapter 3 discusses Paul’s declaration of our freedom in practices and personal convictions on secondary matters. Chapter 4 next explains that Paul relies on Scripture as the foundation for understanding the gospel and, more generally, what we believe as Christians. In chapter 5, we conclude Part I of our study by discussing how Paul takes a practical approach to “theological” issues, which brings us back, again and again, to the gospel.
CHAPTER 1

The Pure and Simple Gospel

This is the most important chapter in this book. As Paul makes clear, the gospel is the basis for our salvation. It is the foundation on which all of his other instructions are built. If we build on any other foundation, everything else that we believe or do will crumble in the end.
The gospel message as declared by Paul is easy to understand but often hard to accept. Almost everyone can readily grasp the essential elements of the gospel at a basic level. But many want to make it more complex than it is, perhaps because it is difficult to accept that something so important can be so simple. Paul is very clear, however, that the gospel message of salvation is simple, straightforward, and available to all who come in faith. Let’s examine the foundation for Paul’s teaching—and our faith—and what it means for us today.
WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIALS OF THE GOSPEL MESSAGE OF SALVATION?
In 1 Corinthians 15:1–4, Paul states plainly the gospel by which we are saved:
I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
Paul provides quite a buildup before identifying the essentials of the gospel message. “By this gospel you are saved” (1 Cor. 15:2). It is the “gospel I preached to you,” the gospel “you received and on which you have taken your stand,” the gospel to which you must “hold firmly,” and it is a matter of “first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3). Having emphasized its importance, Paul states the essential elements of the gospel in a few simple words: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (2 Cor. 15:3–4). Clearly, nothing is more important to Paul than the person of Jesus Christ, his death, and his resurrection.
The book of Acts documents that Paul preached this very gospel message to the churches when he was with them in person. When arriving in a city, it was the “custom” of Paul to go to the synagogue where “he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,’ he said” (Acts 17:2–3). Thus, in his sermon recorded in Acts 13:13–41, Paul presented the “message of salvation” (v. 26) and “the good news” (v. 32) by focusing on the historic events of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. Specifically, he pro­claimed:
The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. (Acts 13:27–31)
Similarly, when put on trial for preaching the gospel, Paul explained: “I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen—that the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:22–23). We are often tempted to complicate the gospel, but when his back was to the wall, Paul stood firm on a simple statement about Jesus Christ, his death, and his resurrection.
Paul’s insistence on this pure and simple gospel wasn’t limited to his preaching. In his letters to the churches, Paul repeats again and again the simple gospel that he had preached. In 1 Corinthians 2:1–2, he explains: “When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him cru­cified.” Similarly, Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 1:23 that “we preach Christ crucified.” He identifies “the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:8–9).
When describing the message that he preached to the Galatians, Paul declared: “Before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified” (Gal. 3:1). Again, in 2 Timothy 2:8, Paul instructs: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel.”
WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS CHRIST?
Jesus was crucified by the Romans, a regional empire that occupied and controlled Palestine at the time. It seemed like a matter of local politics in a backwater province, where the local Roman governor—a man named Pilate—sought to placate Jewish religious leaders who had a vendetta against Jesus. Yet there was a much deeper meaning to the crucifixion of Jesus—a God­ordained plan to restore the relationship between humans and their Creator, a relationship that was fractured when sin entered the world. It was this deeper, divine plan that compelled Paul.
In his death on the cross, Jesus Christ—who lived a life without sin—took our sin upon himself and accepted the punishment that we deserved. As Paul explains in Romans 5:6–11:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Paul addresses this spiritual reality again and again in Romans, which contains his most in­depth discussion of the gospel and its implications for our lives. After explaining in Romans 1:18 to 3:20 that every person is a sinner who is without excuse before God and under God’s wrath, Paul declares that we have access to forgiveness through Christ’s death on the cross:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. (Rom. 3:23–25)
To ensure that his readers understood the eternal significance of the crucifixion, Paul returns to it again and again. Romans 4:25 states: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” In Romans 6:6–7, we read: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”
The life­changing power of Christ’s atoning death is emphasized in Paul’s other letters as well. Ephesians 1:7 explains: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” In Colossians 2:13–14, Paul declares again that “you were dead in your sins” but:
God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
Thus, as Paul states emphatically, the fact that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” is a matter of “first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3) because his death provides the basis for God’s forgiveness of our sins.
WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JESUS CHRIST’S RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD?
We humans are afraid of countless things. We fear spiders, clowns, heights, public spaces, public speaking, and a thousand other terrors. From the silly to the serious, fear is an unavoidable part of what it means to be human.
Yet there is one fear that rises like a specter above all others, that sounds a sinister echo in the background of our daily lives: the fear of death. Nothing is so terrifying as the realization that we will, sooner or later, die and confront the uncertainty about what will happen to us on the other side of this life. The inevitability of death makes it no easier to accept; its permanence forces us to come to grips with fundamental issues.
It is in this profoundly human context that Christ died as a man, just as every man, woman and child will eventually die. Yet Christ conquered death through his resurrection. As sons and daughters of God, we share in Christ’s victory over death and his promise of eternal life.
Paul’s most extensive discussion of the significance of Christ’s resurrection is in 1 Corinthians 15:12–57. In that passage, he begins by correcting those who deny the resurrection, explaining that “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (v. 14) and “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (v. 17). He then declares in verses 20–22:
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
On the day of our resurrection to eternal life, our decaying material bodies will be exchanged for glorified and imperishable bodies. Christ “will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). Much as a seed is planted or sown in one form but then emerges from the earth as something new and better, Paul explains:
So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Cor. 15:42–44)
He compares our current mortal bodies to “jars of clay” (2 Cor. 4:7) and an “earthly tent” which we will exchange for “an eternal house in heaven” (2 Cor. 5:1). The glory of what God has in store for us is beyond our comprehension. “‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived’—the things God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9).
This resurrection power not only has eternal significance, it also has the power to transform our lives today. Emphasizing the connection between the resurrection and the power to live a holy life today, Paul explains in Romans 6:4–10 that:
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
Again, Paul explains in Romans 8:11 that: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”
Jesus Christ took our sins upon himself when he was crucified on the cross, but it was his glorious resurrection that conquered death and prepared the way for our resurrection and eternal life. The great human fear of death is conquered in the triumphant resurrection of Christ. His victory over death changed everything.
WHO IS JESUS CHRIST THAT HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION COULD HAVE THIS SIGNIFICANCE?
Paul emphasizes the primary importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in all his teaching. Yet crucifixions were all too common during that period of human history. And while resurrections were exceedingly rare, the Bible records others such as Lazarus who were raised from the dead. What was it about Jesus Christ that, above anyone else who ever lived, his crucifixion and resurrection could have such eternal and earthshaking significance?
Paul states the answer plainly in Colossians 2:9: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” While Jesus “as to his earthly life was a descendant of David” (Rom. 1:3), he is also “in very nature God” (Phil. 2:6). He “is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). Detailing several of the fundamental characteristics that distinguish Jesus Christ from the rest of humanity, Paul continues in Colossians 1:15–20:
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
In Ephesians 1:19–21, Paul explains how God’s “incomparably great power” was demonstrated when God raised Christ from the dead and “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” Paul continues in verses 22 and 23: “And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
As declared by Paul, Jesus Christ’s unique nature as sinless God who became man is the reason why his death could pay the price for our sins and thus provide the basis for our salvation. Outside of Jesus, there has never been a death that could provide forgiveness for our sins, and there has never been a resurrection that could conquer death and pave the way for our resurrection.
HOW DO WE RECEIVE THE GIFTS OF FORGIVENESS AND ETERNAL LIFE AVAILABLE THROUGH THE GOSPEL?
Christ paid the price for our forgiveness and conquered death so we could have eternal life. We are helpless without him. Salvation is therefore a gift received freely in faith, not something we earn through good works. Paul’s letter to the Romans again contains his most systematic discussion of the role of faith in receiving salvation through the gospel. Emphasizing this important distinction between faith and works, he declares in Romans 4:4–5 that:
Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.
Paul emphasizes the important role of faith for salvation again and again in Romans. “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Rom. 1:17). “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” (Rom. 3:22). Explaining that we “are justified freely by his [God’s] grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus,” Paul declares that “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood— to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:24–25). “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (Rom. 3:28). “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand” (Rom. 5:1–2).
Driving the point home that faith has always been the basis by which people are justified before God, Paul points in Romans 4 to Abraham, the forefather of the Jews who lived more than 2,000 years before Christ’s crucifixion, as a model of someone justified by faith. “‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness’” (Rom. 4:3). “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed” in God’s promise that he would be the father of many nations (Rom. 4:18). “Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old” (Rom. 4:19). “Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why ‘it was credited to him as righteousness’” (Rom. 4:20–22).
Paul is emphatic that salvation in Christ must be received in faith. Indeed, in Romans and his other letters to the churches, he refers to “faith” more than 100 times. For example: “We live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). “Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because ‘the righteous will live by faith’” (Gal. 3:11). “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (Gal. 3:14). “In him [Jesus] and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence” (Eph. 3:12).
In his personal testimony, Paul declares that he is found “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith” (Phil. 3:9). This small sampling of Paul’s references to “faith” reflects his conviction that Christ has done it all, that we cannot save ourselves, and that we only can accept salvation in Christ through faith.
Perhaps the best definition of “faith” is found in the New Testament book of Hebrews. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1). “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb. 11:6). Unless received in faith, the gospel message has little meaning for the one who hears it. “For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed” (Heb. 4:2).
Faith does not require that we understand the mystery of the gospel in its fullness to accept it. When explaining “the message concerning faith that we proclaim,” Paul states the simplicity of the expression of faith required for salvation:
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. (Rom. 10:8–10)
When we genuinely believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths, it is the Spirit of God at work in us. For “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3).
WHAT DO PAUL’S INSTRUCTIONS MEAN FOR US TODAY?
How does this gospel—the unbelievable, life­transforming, history­shaping good news declared by Paul—affect our lives today? As we close this first chapter, we pause to reflect on the practical implications of Paul’s instructions. This opportunity for reflection is not intended to prescribe specifically what we need to do or how we need to change in light of the truths declared by Paul. Instead, these few questions can encourage us to come before God and seek his guidance on how to respond to the truths taught by Paul.

1. Why should God let us into heaven?
2. What would be our eternal destiny if God gave us what we deserved rather than the forgiveness we can have through Christ?
3. Can we be saved by following rules and performing rituals? Why not?
4. What is the significance of the fact that salvation is a gift to be received in faith rather than something to be earned through good works? What is the significance of this fact to our daily walk as Christians?
5. What is the significance of the fact that the gospel is centered on Christ and what he did, rather than on us and our efforts? How should this reality affect our daily walk as Christians?
6. What does it mean to accept the gospel in faith? At an intellectual level, how do we accept the gospel? How does receiving the gospel in faith go beyond intellectual acceptance?
7. Can we fully understand the mystery and miracle of the gospel? Why not?
8. If we cannot be saved by our own good works, what is the role of good works in a Christian’s life (which will be discussed at length in Part II of our study)?
9. What is your relationship with Christ? Is he both your Lord and Savior?

10. How should we live differently in light of the gospel? 
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Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Lazarus Awakening by Joanna Weaver

Tour Date: June 10th

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It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!


Today's Wild Card author is:


and the book:


Lazarus Awakening

WaterBrook Press (February 8, 2011)

***Special thanks to Lynette Kittle, Senior Publicist, WaterBrook Multnomah, a Division of Random House for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:



JOANNA WEAVER is the best-selling author of Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, Having a Mary Spirit, and the award-winning gift book With This Ring. Her articles have appeared in such publications as Focus on the Family, Guideposts, and HomeLife. Joanna and her pastor-husband, John, have three children and live in Montana.


Visit the author's website.


SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Colorado Springs, Colo – In Lazarus Awakening (February 8, 2011) Joanna Weaver author of bestselling Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, helps prepare readers for the Easter celebration of Jesus death and resurrection, through her exploration of Lazarus death and resurrection.

Weaver explores the story of Jesus calling Lazarus forth to new life, and what that can mean to each one of us. How Jesus not only wanted to free Lazarus, but also free each person to live fully in the light of His love, unbound from the grave clothes of fear, regret, and self-condemnation.

She explores how it’s easier for us to believe that God so loved the world…but sometimes wonder if He truly loves us….

Combining unforgettable real-life illustrations with unexpected biblical insights, Weaver invites each of us to experience a spiritual resurrection this Easter that will forever change our understanding of what it means to be the one Jesus loves.

Includes 10-week Bible study (adaptable for 8 weeks) for both individual reflection and group discussion.





Product Details:

List Price: $19.99
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: WaterBrook Press (February 8, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780307444967
ISBN-13: 978-0307444967
ASIN: 0307444961

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:


Chapter 1: Tale of the Third Follower

It’s amazing that such a little space could make so much difference.
Just eighteen inches, give or take a few—that’s all it needs to move. And yet, for many of us, getting God’s love from our heads to our hearts may be the most difficult—yet the most important—thing we ever accomplish.
“I need to talk,” Lisa whispered in my ear one day after women’s Bible study. A committed Christian with a deep passion for the Lord, my friend had tears pooling in her dark eyes as we found a quiet corner where we could talk.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, shaking her head as she looked down at her feet. “I could go to the worst criminal or a drug addict living on the street, and I could look him in the eye and tell him, ‘Jesus loves you!’ and mean it from the bottom of my heart.
“But, Joanna,” she said, gripping my hand, “I can’t seem to look in the mirror and convince myself.”
Her words were familiar to me. I’d felt that same terrible disconnect early in my walk with the Lord. Hoping He loved me but never really knowing for sure. Sadly, I’ve heard the same lonely detachment echoed by hundreds of women I’ve talked to around the country. Beautiful women. Plain women. Talented and not-so-talented women. Strong Christian women, deep in the Word and active in their church, as well as women brand new to their faith. Personal attributes or IQs seem to matter little. Whether they were raised in a loving home or an abusive situation, it doesn’t seem to change what one friend calls an epidemic among Christian women (and many men as well): a barren heart condition I call love-doubt.
“Jesus loves me—this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”(1) Many of us have sung the song since we were children. But do we really believe it? Or has Christ’s love remained more of a fairy tale than a reality we’ve experienced for ourselves in the only place we can really know for sure?
Our hearts.

He Loves Me…He Loves Me Not

You would think after accepting Christ at a young age and being raised in a loving Christian home with a loving, gracious father, I would have been convinced from the beginning that my heavenly Father loved me.
Me. With all my faults and failures. My silly stubbornness and pride.
But those very things kept me from really knowing Christ’s love for the majority of my early adult life. There was just so much to dislike, so much to disapprove of. How could God possibly love me? Even I wasn’t that crazy about me.
For some reason, I’d come to see God as distant and somewhat removed. Rather than transposing upon God the model of my earthly father’s balanced love—both unconditional yet corrective—I saw my heavenly Father as a stern teacher with a yardstick in His hand, pacing up and down the classroom of my life as He looked for any and all infractions. Measuring me against what sometimes felt like impossible standards and occasionally slapping me when I failed to make the grade.
Yes, He loved me, I supposed. At least that’s what I’d been taught. But I didn’t always feel God’s love. Most of the time I lived in fear of the yardstick. Who knew when His judgment would snap down its disapproval, leaving a nasty mark on my heart as well as my soul?
As a result, I lived the first three decades of my life like an insecure adolescent, forever picking daisies and tearing them apart, never stopping to enjoy their beauty. He loves me, He loves me not, I would say subconsciously, plucking a petal as I weighed my behavior and attitudes against what the Bible said I should be.
Powerful church services and sweet altar times. Ah, I felt secure in His love. Real life and less-than-sweet responses? I felt lost and all alone. Unfortunately, all I got from constantly questioning God’s love was a fearful heart and a pile of torn, wilted petals. My overzealous self-analysis never brought the peace I longed for.
Because the peace you and I were created for doesn’t come from picking daisies. It only comes from a living relationship with a loving God.

The Tale of the Third Follower

I never planned on writing a trilogy about Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, the siblings from Bethany that we meet in Luke’s and John’s gospels. In fact, when I wrote Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, I was fairly certain it was the one and only book to be found in those verses. But God surprised me six years later, and Having a Mary Spirit was born.
The thought that there might be a third book never crossed my mind until I shared an interesting premise with a few friends who are writers. It was a teaching point I’d hoped to fit into Having a Mary Spirit but never quite found room.
“We all know Jesus loved Mary,” I told my friends. “After all, look how she worshiped. And we can even understand how Jesus loved Martha. Look how she served. But what about those of us who don’t know where we fit in the heart of God?”
The question hung in the air before I continued.
“The only thing of significance that Lazarus did was die. And yet when Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was ill, they said, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’ ”
Somehow my words seemed to have extra weight as they floated between us. Extra importance. Even I felt their impact.
After a few moments my friend Wendy broke the silence. “That part of the story didn’t make it into the book because it is a book.”
I can’t adequately explain what happened when she said those words, except to say it was as though a giant bell began to sound in my soul. Its reverberations sent shock waves through my body as I tried to change the subject.
The thing is, I didn’t want to write about Lazarus. I wanted to write a different book. I was ready to move on, to explore other subjects.
But God wouldn’t let me. And so you hold this book in your hands.

A Place to Call Home

We first meet the family from Bethany in Luke 10:38–42. Or rather we meet part of the family—two followers of Jesus named Martha and Mary.
You’re probably familiar with the story Luke tells. Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem for one of the great Jewish feasts when Martha came out to meet Him with an invitation to dinner. But while Martha opened her home, it was her sister, Mary, who opened her heart. To put the story in a nutshell: Mary worshiped. Martha complained. Jesus rebuked. And lives were changed.(2)
Strangely, Luke’s account never even mentions Mary and Martha’s brother, Lazarus. Perhaps he wasn’t home when Martha held her dinner party. Perhaps he was away on business. Or perhaps he was there all the time but no one really noticed.
Some people are like that. They have perfected the art of invisibility. Experts at fading into the background, they go out of their way not to attract attention, and when they get noticed, they feel great discomfort.
Of course, I have no way of knowing if this was true of Lazarus. Scripture doesn’t give any information as to who he was or what he was like—only that he lived in Bethany and had two sisters. When we finally meet him, in John 11, it is an odd introduction—for it starts with a 911 call that leads to a funeral:

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.
Then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”.…
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.…
…“Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept. (John 11:1–7, 17, 34–35)

What a tender story. A story filled with emotion and dramatic tension. The story of two sisters torn by grief and a Savior who loved them yet chose to tarry.
Of course, there is more to it—more truths we’ll discover as we walk through the forty-four verses John devotes to this tale. For the story of Lazarus is also the story of Jesus’s greatest miracle: that of awakening His friend from the dead. (To read the whole story all at once, see Appendix A: “The Story.”)
Have you noticed that when Jesus comes on the scene, what seems to be the end is rarely the end? In fact, it’s nearly always a new beginning.
But Mary and Martha didn’t know that at the time. And I’m prone to forget it as well.
Questions and disappointments, sorrow and fear tend to block out the bigger picture in situations like the one we see in Bethany. What do we do when God doesn’t come through the way we hoped He would? What should we feel when what is dearest to our hearts is suddenly snatched away? How do we reconcile the love of God with the disappointments we face in life?
Such questions don’t have easy answers. However, in this story of Jesus’s three friends, I believe we can find clues to help us navigate the unknown and the tragic when we encounter them in our own lives. Tips to help us live in the meantime—that cruel in-between time when we are waiting for God to act—as well as insights to help us trust Him when He doesn’t seem to be doing anything at all.
But most important, I believe the story of Lazarus reveals the scandalous availability of God’s love if we will only reach out and accept it. Even when we don’t deserve it. Even when life is hard and we don’t understand.
For God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, Isaiah 55:8–9 tells us. He knows what He’s doing.
Even when we can’t figure out His math.

Algebra and Me

Arithmetic was always one of my favorite subjects in grade school, one I excelled at. Of course, that was in the last century, before they started introducing algebra in the fourth grade. In my post–Leave It to Beaver, yet very serene, childhood, the only equations that wrinkled my nine-year-old forehead were fairly straightforward:

2 + 2 = 4
19 − 7 = 12

Of course, fourth-grade math was more difficult than that. But the basic addition and subtraction skills I’d learned in first and second grade helped me tackle the multiplication and division problems of third and fourth grade with confidence. By the time I reached sixth grade, I was fairly proficient with complicated columns of sums and had pretty much conquered the mysterious world of fractions. I was amazing—a math whiz.
But then eighth grade dawned and, with it, a very brief introduction to algebra. It all seemed quite silly to me. Who cared what the y factor was? And why on earth would I ever need to know what x + y + z equaled?
When my teacher gave us a high-school placement math exam that spring, I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out the answers—mainly because I had no idea how, and when I tried, it made my head hurt. Instead, when I encountered a difficult problem during the test, I did what had always worked for me: I looked for a pattern in the answers.
Allowing my mind to back up a bit and my eyes to go a little fuzzy, I’d stare at all those little ovals I’d so neatly darkened in with my number-two pencil until I could see a pattern. I haven’t filled in a D for a while. Or, There were two Bs and then two Cs and one A, so obviously this must be another A.
I was amazing at this too.
No, really, I was. Several weeks later when we received the results of our testing, I had been placed not in bonehead math, not even in beginning algebra. No, it was accelerated algebra for me, though I hadn’t a clue what I was doing.
To this day I still don’t. My algebraic cluelessness has followed me through adulthood and on into parenting. My kids can ask an English question, quiz me on history or government, and I can usually give them an answer or at least help them find one. But when it comes to algebra or geometry or calculus or any of those other advanced math classes invented by some sick, twisted Einstein wannabe…well, they’d better go ask their dad.
Advanced mathematics remains a complete mystery to me. The unknown factors seem so haphazard. What if z/y squared doesn’t equal nine? What then?
The unknown factors frustrate us in life’s story problems as well—and there are plenty of those in John 11. How are we to compute the fact that Jesus stayed where He was rather than rushing to Lazarus’s side when He heard His friend was ill? How do we reconcile Jesus’s allowing Mary and Martha to walk through so much pain when He could have prevented it in the first place?
Difficult questions, without a doubt. But there is a foundational truth in this passage we must first acknowledge before we can tackle the tougher issues.
“Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5, emphasis added).
Jesus loves you and me as well. He loves us just as we are—apart from our Martha works and Mary worship. He even loves those of us who come empty-handed, feeling dead inside and perhaps a little bound.
For while it may not add up in our human calculations, the truth of God’s love lies at the heart of the gospel. “While we were still sinners,” Romans 5:8 tells us, “Christ died for us.” We may not be able to do the math ourselves or reason out such amazing grace, but if we’ll simply ask, our heavenly Father longs to help us find the bottom line.

The Lazarus Factor

I’ve always told my husband, John, that he has to die before I do—mainly because I don’t want him remarrying some wonderful woman and finding out what he’s missed all these years. But then again, if he were to go first, I’m convinced I’d face financial ruin in two months. It’s not because John hasn’t taken very good care of us financially but because I absolutely hate balancing checkbooks.
My idea of reconciling my checking account is to call a very nice lady named Rhonda at our bank. She graciously lets me know the bottom line whenever I’m a little leery of where I stand.
Now, I know this isn’t a wise way to handle fiscal matters. In fact, you CPAs reading this are about to faint if you haven’t already thrown the book across the room. But, hey, it works for me.
Most of the time.
Okay, so there have been a few blips in my system. But I’m coming to believe that while this may not be such a great method in the natural realm, it may be the only way to go in the spiritual.
After spending the greater part of my life trying to make everything add up on my own—that is, trying to make sure my good outweighed my bad so I was never overdrawn but was continually making deposits in my righteousness bank—I finally realized that nothing I did could ever be enough. No matter how hard I tried, I constantly lived under the weight of my own disapproval. Which, of course, instantly mutated into a sense that God was coldly disappointed with me as well.
He loves me not…
Keeping my own spiritual books has never added up to anything but guilt and condemnation and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. I’m so glad God’s math isn’t like mine. And oh how I rejoice that He doesn’t demand I come up with the correct answer before He makes me His child. Because when I couldn’t make it up to Him, Jesus came down to me. And through His precious blood sacrifice, He made a way for me to come not only into His presence but directly into the heart of God.
“All of this is a gift from God,” 2 Corinthians 5:18–19 tells us, “who brought us back to himself through Christ.… no longer counting people’s sins against them” (NLT).

Breaking the Yardstick

I don’t think we can begin to imagine how radical Christ’s New Testament message of grace sounded to a people who had been living under the Law for thousands of years. The thought that there might be a different way to approach God—a better way—was appealing to some Jews but threatening to many others.
For those who kept stumbling over the rules and regulations set up by the religious elite—never quite measuring up to the yardstick of the Law—the idea that God might love them apart from what they did must have been incredibly liberating.
But for the Jewish hierarchy who had mastered the Law and felt quite proud of it, Jesus’s words surely posed a threat. His message pierced their religious facades, revealing the darkness of their hearts and, quite frankly, making them mad. Rather than running to the grace and forgiveness He offered, they kept defaulting to the yardstick—using it to justify themselves one minute, wielding it as a weapon against Jesus the next.*
“You come from Nazareth?” they said, pointing the yardstick. “Nothing good comes from Nazareth.” That’s one whack for you. “You eat with tax collectors and sinners? That’s even worse.” Whack, whack. “You heal on the Sabbath?” they screamed, waving their rules and regulations. Off with Your head!
The Sadducees and Pharisees had no room in their religion for freedom. As a result, they had no room for Christ. They were people of the yardstick. Even though Jesus kept insisting He hadn’t come to “abolish the Law or the Prophets…but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17), they just wouldn’t listen. Like little children they plugged their ears and kept singing the same old tune, though a New Song had been sent from heaven.
Which is so very sad. Especially when you consider that the very Law they were so zealous for had been intended to prepare them for the Messiah rather than keep them from acknowledging Him.
After all, God established His original covenant with Abraham long before He gave Moses the Law—430 years before, to be exact (Galatians 3:17). The love the Father extended to Abraham and to all those who came after him had no strings attached. It was based on the recipient’s acceptance of grace from beginning to end.
But somehow Israel fell in love with the Law rather than in love with their God. And we are in danger of doing the same thing. Exalting rules as the pathway to heaven. Embracing formulas as our salvation. Worshiping our own willpower rather than allowing the power of God to work in us to transform our lives.(5)
Such self-induced holiness didn’t work for the Jews, and it doesn’t work for us. That’s why Jesus had to come.
The Law had originally been given “to show people their sins,” Galatians 3:19 tells us. But it was “designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised” (NLT). Though the yardstick of the Law helped keep us in line, it was never intended to save us. Only Christ could do that. And oh may I tell you how that comforts my soul?
I’ll never forget the day I handed Jesus my yardstick. I had been saved since childhood, but I was almost thirty before the message of grace finally made the trip from my head to my heart, setting me “free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). As the light of the good news finally penetrated the darkness of my self-condemning mind, the “perfect love” 1 John 4:18 speaks of finally drove out my fear, which had always been rooted in fear of punishment.
When I finally laid down my Pharisee pride and admitted that in myself I would never be—could never be—enough, I experienced a breakthrough that has radically changed my life. For as I surrendered my yardstick—the tool of comparison that had caused so much mental torment and a sense of separation from God—Jesus took it from my hands. Then, with a look of great love, He broke it over His knee and turned it into a cross, reminding me that He died so I wouldn’t have to.
That the punishment I so fully deserve has already been paid for.
That the way has been made for everyone who will believe in Jesus not only to come to Him but to come back home to the heart of God.

A Place to Lay Our Hearts

From the moment God so kindly exploded the concept of this book in my soul, I’ve had just one prayer. It is the prayer Paul prayed for all believers in Ephesians 3:17–19:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I believe that everything we were made for and everything we’ve ever wanted is found in these three little verses. But in order to appropriate the all-encompassing love of God, we must give up our obsession with formulas and yardsticks. But how do we do that? Paul’s prayer reveals an important key: “that you…may have power…to know this love that surpasses knowledge” (emphasis added).
The marvelous incongruity of that statement hit me several years ago. “Wait, Lord! How can I know something that surpasses knowledge?” I asked.
His answer came sweet and low to my spirit. You have to stop trying to understand it and start accepting it, Joanna. Just let Me love you.
For the reality is, no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to explain or deserve such amazing grace and incredible love. Nor can we escape it.
It’s just too wide, Ephesians 3:18 tells us. We can’t get around it.
It’s just too high. We can’t get over it.
It’s so long we’ll never be able to outrun it.
And it’s so deep we’ll never be able to exhaust it.
Bottom line: You can’t get away from God’s love no matter how hard you try. Because He’s pursuing you, my friend. Maybe it’s time to stop running away from love and start running toward it.
Even if, at times, it seems too good to be true.

Are You Willing to Be Loved?

I don’t know why Jesus chose me to love. Really, I don’t. Perhaps you don’t understand why He chose you. But He did. Really, He did. Until we get around to accepting His amazing, undeserved favor, I fear we will miss everything a relationship with Christ really means.
When my husband proposed to me so many years ago, I didn’t say, “Wait a minute, John. Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?” I didn’t pull out a list of reasons why he couldn’t possibly love me or a rap sheet detailing my inadequacies to prove why he shouldn’t—although there were and are many.
No way! I just threw my arms open wide and accepted his love. I would have been a fool to turn down an offer like that.
I wonder what would happen in our lives if we stopped resisting God’s love and started receiving it. What if we stopped trying to do the math, stopped striving to earn His favor? What if we just accepted the altogether-too-good-to-be-true news that the yardstick has been broken and the Cross has opened a door to intimacy with our Maker?
For if we are ever to be His beloved, we must be willing to be loved.
Simple, huh? And yet oh so hard. Like my friend Lisa, many of us are plagued by love-doubt. We have hidden tombs yet to be opened. Dark secrets that keep us hanging back. Soul-sicknesses that have left us crippled and embittered by our inability to forgive or forget. Graveclothes that keep tripping us up and fears that hold us back from believing the good news could ever be true for people like us.
I wonder…
Maybe it’s time to look in the mirror and start witnessing to ourselves.
Maybe it’s time we stop living by what we feel and start proclaiming what our spirits already know: “I have been chosen by God. Whether I feel loved or believe I deserve it, from this moment on I choose to be loved.”
Say it out loud: “I choose to be loved.”
You may have to force yourself to say the words. Today your emotions may not correspond with what you’ve just declared. It is likely you may have to repeat the same words tomorrow. And do it again the next day. And the next.
But I promise that as you start appropriating what God has already declared as truth, something’s going to shift in the heavenly regions. More important, something’s going to shift in you.
So say those words as many times as you need to…until the message gets through your thick head to your newly tender heart. Until you finally come to believe what’s been true all along.
Shh…listen. Do you hear it?
It’s Love.
And He’s calling your name.


* Please let me tell you how much I love the nation of Israel. I fully believe they are the chosen people of God and a precious family into which I have been adopted. When I speak of the spiritual pride and blindness of the religious hierarchy of Jesus’s day, it is not to condemn the Jews. Instead, I see my own tendency—and the tendency of the body of Christ today—to fall into spiritual pride and blindness when we love our “form of godliness” but miss “the power thereof ” (2 Timothy 3:5, KJV).

Excerpted from Lazarus Awakening by Joanna Weaver Copyright © 2011 by Joanna Weaver. Excerpted by permission of WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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