Lent – Day 25: The time is coming when the dead will leave their graves at the sound of my Voice.

John 5: 17 – 30

If the Lord came that we may have life and to have it in abundance, then what is the mission of the evil one, and what is the mission of sin? The mission of sin and evil is that we may have death and experience in its fullness. This is the situation that Jesus came to deliver us from. Death is not when our hearts stop beating, or when our brains die or when we stop breathing, no. Death is when our hearts stop loving, when our hearts stop trusting, when our hearts stop believing and our hearts stop hoping. Death can happen to us when we allow the challenges of our life to make us lose perspective and to blind us to the treasures that are within ourselves. Death happens to us when fear imprisons our hearts. This could be fears of losing someone we love; fears of being hurt again; fears of failing; fears of being alone; fears of being unable to find our way back to grace; and fears of being inadequate. These fears can chase us into our graves of false security.  As is the case with all things in graveyards, our hearts will not experience security but our heart will experience death. In our graves, the best part of us begin to die slowly. When this happens, we will die without knowing what it means to be alive. 

Jesus promises that we will hear the sound of his voice from our graves, and then we will live. His voice will call us forth, as it did Lazarus, from death to life, from fear to faith, from despair to hope and from sin to grace. But when will this happen, you may ask. When will He call us? When will He help us? Today is the favourable time. Today is the day of salvation. Today you will hear His voice calling you forth from the graves that fear has sealed. If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.

May God Bless us all as we walk out of our graves following the Shepherd’s voice!