Are You Living in the Dark and Have You Misread Your Situation?

Scripture: John 20:1-2

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb.  So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”

Insights:  This week we are going to look at six provoking questions from the tomb.  Today we are going to ask two of them and they are found below in the questions section of this blog.  To understand the questions let me explain the historical scene that is unfolding before us in today’s verses.  Verse one tells us that it is before sunrise when Mary Magdalene arrives at the tomb and specifically it tells us that it is still dark.  Not only is it physically dark, but Mary is also in a dark place emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually as well.  Often times in this world we find ourselves in dark places and we do not see any hope or escape from our present situation of pain and hurt.  Mary is currently in that kind of place.  The second thing we notice about Mary is that after she looks into the tomb she takes off and tells Peter and John that Jesus’ body has been taken and she does not know where it has been laid.  She has misread the empty tomb.  Again, we, just like Mary, look at situations in our lives and misinterpret the eternal scheme of things.  One of the major areas in which we misread or misinterpret eternal things is in our thought processes regarding what it takes to enter into heaven.  For many people they think if their good deeds out way their bad deeds, then they will enter into heaven.  The problem is that they don’t understand the standard for entering heaven is perfection.  I gave an illustration that Tony Evans preached to help our audience Sunday understand this point.  I told the congregation to imagine that the standard for getting into heaven was jumping and touching our ceiling from the ground floor.  You need to understand this jump is an impossible jump and no one is going to reach our churches ceiling with a single jump from the floor.  I informed them, however, that some would jump higher than others jumped, but all would miss the objective.  We need another source in order to reach the standard and that is the perspective we need to read correctly.  We will discuss this standard later on throughout this week.

Questions:

1.  Are you living in the dark?

2.  Have you misread your situation?

Prayer: Father, all too often I get overwhelmed with my life situations and as a result misread what is actually going on around me.  Lord, help me to walk in the light as You are in the light and to read my situations from Your lens of eternity.  Amen.