What is your stone?

You know…

The boulder standing in the way of your breakthrough.

What makes you caution God?

You know…

Make Him aware of the condition you’re in.

Martha felt the need to forewarn Jesus, 

innocently advising Him about the state that her brother was in. 

She had a practical concern. 

I could feel the disappointment in her reasoning.  

The agitation that was tamed by humility. 

The desire to say much more,

Subdued by the understanding that Jesus is still Lord.

So she held her peace. 

I’m convinced that Jesus wept due to unbelief. 

Not because his dear friend had passed, 

He carried the cure for that. 

I’m convinced Jesus wept because of the hesitancy to take the stone away. 

So I’ll ask again…

What is your stone?

Does the stench of a dead body have you convinced that it’s too late?

Do you stare at a shut-up sepulcher with your head hung low?

This deliverance demanded that first a stone be rolled away, 

A mindset that traps one in stagnation.

A belief that strips away the possibility of liberation from your circumstance.

A stronghold that seals your case off from any chance of redemption.

Take away the stone.

Only then can Christ come in contact with the corpse. 

What is the corpse in your life that Christ wants to revive?

The dead thing that triggers all five senses and reminds you of what once was. 

Take away the stone! 

Only then would God send forth his word.

Lazarus came forth, and what once was dead had come alive.

Now, what if I told you that this deliverance is layered? 

Even after you muster up all of your strength, 

and scrape together the currency of your faith to roll the stone away.

Oh, and even after dunamis is unleashed like dynamite, breathing life into the dead.

There’s still more to be said. 

“Loose him and let him go!” 

Jesus addressed the grave clothes. 

Jesus spoke to the napkin covering the face of his beloved. 

The thing that would hinder his testimony.

Jesus spoke to the bandages holding his friend hostage.

They unraveled like his breakthrough.

It was a continuous deliverance. 

The unshackling was ongoing. 

The process had only begun because the stone was taken away. 

“Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.”

‭‭John‬ ‭11‬:‭39‬-‭44‬ ‭‬‬

For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

Mark 11:22-24