![]() How could this friend who loved them leave them alone in this world? I imagine his disciples must have really wrestled with feeling abandoned on the Saturday after the cross. Suffering in this sin-stained world is inevitable, and it can threaten our sense of Jesus’ love. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” (John 11:5-6) Uh, what? If he really loved them, shouldn’t he have sprinted as fast as he could to rescue Lazarus? “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. It completely blows our categories when it comes to what the love of Jesus really looks like. But that’s why I need the life-changing reality of John 11:5-6. After all, a global pandemic didn’t feel very loving. So how does that love play out in our lives? Perhaps not always the way we think. Receiving this kind of love makes me want to be that same kind of friend of sinners. ![]() No performance necessary, just a need to acknowledge that I am one of those sinners who needs the kind of friend Jesus is. This is one of my favorite titles of Jesus. Is he the kind of friend for whom we need to perform? No! Because the one who lays down his life for his friends is a friend of sinners. I can feel that pull, too, when it comes to Jesus. If I’m honest, I so often connect friendship to performance– if I can put on the right kind of performance, whatever the circumstances and the crowd call for, then I will have friends. There is perhaps no better picture of God’s glory than the cross, which draws me to another life-changing verse, John 15:13 – “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Psalm 32:1 is a picture of our out-in-the-open sin being overwhelmed by the glory of the forgiver. I can’t help but think about how God’s glorious presence would cover the temple in the Old Testament. ![]() In fact, honesty about sin is necessary to be blessed because confession accesses the one who covers transgressions.Īnd this isn’t a cover-up. This verse is life-changing for me because it has freed me up to be honest about my need for forgiveness. ![]() Here’s an example, Psalm 32:1 – “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” I would expect the Bible to say something like this instead: “Blessed is the one who has no reason to be forgiven.”īut the Bible is real, and it invites us to be the same. One reason that I have confidence that the Bible really is the Word of God is because I never could have come up with it: what is shown to us in Scripture is so far beyond us. You can check out what RUF at Duke is up to here. Matt Mahla is the RUF Campus Minister at Duke University. ![]()
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