Father Save Me From This Hour?

John 12:27–36

Father Save Me From This Hour?

“Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father save me from this hour'? No, It was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name!”

The passage for today tells us of Jesus' prediction of his impending death.  After his miraculous raising of Lazarus from the dead, many Jews became believers and throngs of others became intensely interested in Jesus and his teachings.  The high priests and Pharisees, understanding Jesus' growing influence and power, began plotting his death.  Jesus is aware of this, and states for the first time in this Gospel of his inevitable demise.  Though afraid and "troubled" Jesus does not ask his father to save him from this, instead he understands that for this "very reason" God has sent him to this "hour". 

As Tupper has been teaching in his "Bible Basics" Sunday school class; so much of the Bible and God's message to us all, is that so many things that occur in the Bible and in our lives- the world intends as bad.  But that the "Kingdom of God" intends to use as good.  Jesus understands this greater than anyone.  He understands that in his death, his Father will use him in a much more profound and higher purpose than in his living. 

How about us?  Can we understand this in our "hours” of darkness?  Can we conceive, even a little, that God will use our suffering for his good?  Can we ever trust enough to stop pleading to be delivered from our turmoil and pain, and instead pray for the faith to follow him through it all - trusting that the Kingdom of God will use it all to his purpose?  I haven't… but I am trying.  Really, really trying.  Trying not to understand my immeasurable pain… my turmoil, but to trust in His undying grace that my God will use it all (and somehow me) to his glory.

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Father, help me to trust in your Grace.

Clare Crawford

Eternal Life

John 12:20–26

Eternal Life

“Those who love their own life will lose it; those who hate their own life in this world will keep it for life eternal.”  John 12:25  (Good News)

I’m not sure I love my own life.  There are moments of love and contentment, but I sure would like to walk in someone else’s shoes some days. 

But Jesus isn’t speaking of contentment and happiness here.  I think he’s speaking of agape love.  The kind of unconditional giving that comes with knowing you have made choices in your life that are good for everyone.  The choices that have made someone else’s life easier.

But he is speaking of eternal life here.  When we choose to live our lives with kindness and with caring for strangers and our fellow man, on a regular basis, we are choosing to enter heaven.  And if this is true, then the opposite must be true as well.  If we grumble and are hateful in our lives, by being selfish and sinful, then we will remain so forever. 

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Father, thank you for the opportunity to make choices that I can live with.

Lori Earls

Winners and Losers

John 12:9–19

Winners and Losers

“Then the Pharisees said to each other: ‘We’ve lost. Look- the world has gone after Him!’”  John 12: 19  (Living Bible)

Unlike the Pharisees, I can’t think of a time when I’ve felt that I was in competition for friends or people who believed in and supported me. I’ve never been extremely competitive at all which likely accounts for the end of any sports career I might’ve had after tee ball ended. The idea that with every winner comes the loser necessary for their feeling of satisfaction puzzles me.

This passage throws me for a loop because I don’t associate Jesus’ adoration during his entrance as a situation when there could possibly be a loser, but sometimes our perception of a circumstance is distorted by our desires in that moment.

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Dear Lord, help me to take a step back from my own agenda to see your plan for my life. Amen

Emily Earls

All God’s Children

Matthew 21:12–17

All God’s Children

“…my house shall be called a house of prayer…” Matthew 21:13 (NIV)

When Jesus spoke these words as he was tossing the money changers out of the Temple on Palm Sunday, he was quoting the prophet Isaiah:  For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.

Those words have always had a special meaning for me, because, when I was a young teenager and World War II was at its worst, I belonged to a church that had outgrown its walls. Because of the war, we could not build anything, so our pastor, himself a native of Belgium, arranged with the Russian-born rabbi, whose synagogue was just a block away, for some of our Sunday School classes to meet there …after all, their congregation had observed their Sabbath earlier in the week.

Isaiah’s words, carved above the door of the synagogue, took on a new and powerful meaning as the Christian teenagers trooped through that door on Sunday mornings.

It led to closer understanding with the Jewish kids who were also our classmates during the week. And as we found so much common ground, it underscored that we are indeed all children of the same God.

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Lord, give us grace to know that You are indeed the God of all peoples, even those who call you by a different name, and all of us are Your children and equally precious in Your eyes.  Amen.

Kay Koehler