SUNDAY 1ST JULY 2018 MORNING PRAYER DEVOTION
SCRIPTURE READING:- JOHN 11:1-44
TOPIC:- JESUS WEPT FOR YOU
TEXT:- JOHN 11:35
There are five places where Jesus wept, and the reasons are not far-fetched. But before we discuss the reasons why Jesus wept, we need to look at those places in the scripture.
1. In John 11:33-36, we see that Jesus wept (vs 35) because Lazarus His friend had just died and buried already in the grave. And Lazarus’ sisters did not believe that Jesus was there to raise him up from dead.
2. In Luke 19:39-44, we also find a place there where Jesus wept (vs 41), but this time it was over the city of Jerusalem because it failed to recognize Jesus’ visitation. He wept due to the future evil occurrences that will befall Jerusalem. This eventually happened in A.D. 70 when the Romans invaded Jerusalem and destroyed it according to history (most especially, the second built temple).
3. In Luke 22:39-46, where Jesus went with eleven of His disciples to a garden called Gethsemane to pray. Although there was no sign of His weeping but in verse 44, the prayer of great agony which he prayed brought out from His body heavy drops of sweat which looked like blood. The type of prayer He had never prayed before, just because of the agony of death He was about to face in dying for mankind.
4. In Matthew 27:45-49, when He was already on the cross. He was almost at the point of dying for mankind, He cried with a loud voice (vs 46). Seeing His Father (God) turn Himself away from beholding Him because of the sin of the whole world. (This is better expressed in the Easy to Read Version).
5. And lastly in Hebrew 6:4-6, it was stated therein that anytime a Christian withdraws from following Jesus Christ, i.e. if we willingly fall into sin, we are crucifying Jesus Christ on the cross again which will attract His weeping (vs 6). So we must not crucify Jesus Christ on the cross again by sinning, God forbid.
In all the above, we can summarize why Jesus wept are in four folds:
1. Jesus wept because of us. In Isaiah 53:3-5, it was said there that He wept for us because of our sin.
2. In the case of John 11:35, He wept because they’ve concluded and concluded on Lazarus not to live again, and failed to believe that Jesus can do all things.
3. Jesus wept for us because He wants us to cease weeping for He alone can tell us to weep no more, Luke 7:13.
4. Also Jesus wept for us because the expiry date for weeping is now, our time of weeping is past but now is the time of joy. See Psalm 30:5.
Fire your weeping with JOY!
Prayer Points:-
1. I command my weeping to terminate and change to joy henceforth, in the name of Jesus Christ
2. Jesus Christ has done all the weeping for me, I declare no more weeping, no more sorrow for me, in the name of Jesus Christ.
3. I command you sorrow and weeping, enough is enough in my life and family, expire now by fire, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Happy Lord’s Day!
