Martha, the busy one, runs to Jesus knowing at he can do something no one else can but believes it will come on the last day. Resurrection was not not a foreign idea to Israel. Although the Sadducees rejected it, the Pharisees did not. It has been a veiled teaching for the beginning now revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He would not only rise from the grave but He Himself declared that He is the resurrection and the life! This is not the first time He claims to be the life nor the last He will in the 7 I Am statements recorded for us in the Gospel of John. He already said He was the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Gate and the Good Shepherd who would lay down His life for the sheep. All of these statements are of life giving and sustaining power. Jesus said, "Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die-ever." Death is so much more than our spirit being separated from our bodies. We are born dead, which means we are spiritually separated from God and at death we are separated from our bodies but the eternal death or second death as John tells us in the book of Revelation, this death is separation from God's presence forever, both body and spirit. This is the very opposite that Jesus gives on behalf of His finished work on the cross and what people deserve when they reject Jesus as God's Son and Christ. Martha evidently knew but Jesus says it's not enough to know, you must know and believe or in other words trust. He doesn't just tell her this but shapes it in the form of a question, "Do you believe this." The apostle Paul says in his letter called Romans, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved." (vs. 9,10) To confess means to agree with. Jesus was telling Martha to say out loud what she knew to be true in her heart in light of what she was just told. Thank God for His Truth preserved for us these 2,000 years so that we, like Martha, can know, believe and declare that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. Let us sense His presence, trust His promise and live in His resurrection power today. Have great day Loved Ones and God bless you real good!
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