ecently I received a text from a dear friend. She had been doing some Bible study and was looking for feedback that would help her strengthen her faith. Actually, I think she was looking for more than just feedback. I think she was looking for the answer to a very important unspoken question: “How can I know God because right now He seems distant and far away?” When what we are searching for seems elusive, it’s easy to slide back into old thinking patterns and familiar behavior. It’s much easier to return to old formulas than to press forward toward something new.

Here’s the text I received from my friend.

John 5:33-47
2 verses stick out in my head.  I’m reading the Passion translation.
v39 – too busy analyzing scripture … you still refuse to come to me so I can give you the life you want
v44 – Of course you don’t believe in me.  For you live to enjoy the praises of others and not the praises that come from the one true God.
– Yeah, I feel like these two verses hit a nerve with me this morning.
– This has always been my problem with my faith. It’s like I feel there’s something I’m missing.  Like, info I wasn’t issued. A piece of it all that I haven’t figured out yet or put it all together.
– It’s like it taps in on this feeling that I’m not good enough to know the secret. Then I start to feel rejected. Then it moves over into always feeling like God is “over there” and unobtainable. So I feel abandoned, which leads me to – well – looks like you’re just going to hell!
– So then I go back to living my life where I’m in control and live out my worldly life of drinking, cussing, and consumerism.
– There it is, in just a few scriptures I’ve unpacked my struggle in my faith. It’s a cycle I’ve swirled around in all my life.  So how do you break the cycle?  Is there a piece of info or a step that I’m just not getting?  What am I missing here?

We All Have Questions

I want to address the questions in her text. I want to answer them for my friend, Suzanna, but I also want to answer them because you may be wrestling with some of the same things. I believe there are two different things going on. First is a question that is very personal. It’s a deep spiritual question that can propel a person forward or dishearten that person to the point where he or she just stops seeking.

Suzanna asks how she can break the cycle of trying to read the Bible, not fully understanding it, criticizing herself for not understanding, and just going back to doing life her own self-indulgent way.

Then, to me, there are separate questions she asks about the passage in John 5. It will help if we take a look at the broader context in which Jesus speaks verses 39 and 44. We’ll look at those Scriptures in a bit.

The Seeking/Recoiling Cycle

Let’s start with a look at the cycle she describes of trying/not-understanding/stopping-the-effort. Have you ever felt this frustration and been in that cycle? I have! I couldn’t help but remember a time in my life – several years of my life in fact – when I asked a lot of the same questions she was asking. It feels a little freaky because reading her text is almost like reading a note I could have written myself. I relate so strongly.

I had this unexplainable desire, back then, that kept welling up within me. I wanted to read the Bible. I wanted to know God. I wanted to “get it.” I wanted to be a Jesus follower and see my life – which was somewhat of a mess – fall into place and “work out for the good.” After all, I’d seen those tee shirts with the scriptures written on them.

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God… ” Romans 8:28

“For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

Did God have plans to prosper me? ‘Cause everything in my life was NOT working out for good.

I knew other people who were Christians, and to me, just like to Suzanna, it seemed like they had a quality (that’s not the right word, but it’s the closest I can get to the right word), or maybe it was a secret code, that unlocked all the mysteries of the Bible for them. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that made them different. But, I knew I didn’t have it.

I knew I wanted it.

I’m not saying this is exactly where Suzanna was when she reached out to me the other day, but her text did conjure up some very familiar messages that used to play repetitively through my own mind.

At that time, I was pretty much doing my own thing, the best I could, to be a “good person” and do what seemed “right,” but still kinda messing up more than succeeding. The one thing that I did that really was right was I kept coming back to read the Bible. Maybe I was looking for the formula that would fix things.

My Own Bible Study Cycle

I’d pick up the Bible and start at the beginning, reading Genesis. Then, before I could even get to the second story in the Bible, the story of Noah and the ark and the flood, I would get lost in the verses of the kids that were born to this guy who lived a gazillion years and other kids were born to guys who lived hundreds of years… my interest waned because I didn’t get the point of it.

The next time I would pick up the Bible, I’d try something different. I’d start in the New Testament. So, here I was again – I started at the beginning with the book of Matthew and I faced another list of people and their kids (which was a lot like those early chapters of Genesis). My eyes crossed and I’d stop again. Sheesh! I’d lay down the Bible and put it aside until another day.

Maybe reading Psalms or Proverbs was the answer. I found some things in Proverbs that sounded like wise advice for a good life. I liked Proverbs and it seemed like I could apply some of it to my life. But Psalms? That was another story. There was a weird mix of some Psalms telling how terrifically wonderful and good God is and other Psalms asking God to zap all their enemies. I didn’t really get Psalms.

The next time I’d pick up the Bible again, I came up with a whole new approach. I would try Matthew again, the first book of the New Testament, but I would just read the words printed in red – after all – those were the words of Jesus, and they are the most important words anyway. Right? Well, without knowing who Jesus was talking to or what He was really talking to them about, when I read those red letters, I was piecing together my own assumptions of what Jesus meant. I was kind of making things up that seemed logical but I was missing the mark more often than hitting it.

Doing Something Right

Another thing I did, like Suzanna, was ask some of my friends about the Bible. I thought maybe they would be able to give me direction and help me fit the pieces together. At that time, nearly every person I asked to help me understand the Bible responded in one of three ways:

1. They gave me their opinion (which wasn’t much better than my own opinion)
2. They discounted my Bible study question and directed me to simply “have more faith and trust God to lead me”
3. Or, they simply said,  “I don’t know.”

• Validated – She validated the fact that my question about the Bible was important and worthy of exploration
• Demonstrated – She demonstrated that even though she didn’t know, she shared my desire to know God more fully by opening the Bible for us to find the answer together
• Valued – She had her Bible with her – which indicated the value she put on Scripture because she carried her Bible with her
• Believed – She opened the Book and believed the Bible itself contained the answer to my questions.

KEY TO WHAT’S MISSING – Believe the Bible has the answers to our questions. The answers are not found in a special feeling or emotion. The answers are not found in opinions. They are found in the truth that is revealed in the God’s Word.

Analyzing Scripture

“v39 – too busy analyzing scripture… you still refuse to come to me so I can give you the life you want “

John 5:39“You are busy analyzing the Scriptures, poring over them hoping to gain eternal life. Everything you read points to me…”

Analyzing the Whole Conversation

Let’s get some background to help us understand this verse. Verse 39 is a part of a bigger conversation. And that conversation is a part of a specific situation that had occurred earlier in Chapter 5. It is important to know what the message meant to the people who heard it. Then we can get a better understanding of what it means for us, centuries later. (See the article “Western Thinking vs Eastern Thinking” for more insight on this subject.)

Maybe this is one of the missing pieces I was looking for years ago. I didn’t understand the whole point so it made it more difficult for me to understand a single verse that I lifted out of the bigger message.

KEY TO WHAT’S MISSING – Read the Bible enough to understand the situation behind the conversations. What did the message mean to those who originally heard it? And how does that translate to us today?

The Situation in John Chapter 5

Jesus has gone to Jerusalem during the time of a festival of the Jews. On the Sabbath, Jesus comes across a man who had been crippled for nearly 40 years. Jesus heals the man then commands him to get up, lift his pallet, and walk.

The man did.

The Jews confronted the man who had been healed because the healed man had broken the Sabbath law by carrying his pallet. He deflected the blame by explaining to the Jews that it was the man who healed him who told him to carry his pallet.

Later, Jesus found the healed man in the temple and approached him with a warning – you’ve been made well. Don’t sin any more so that nothing worse happens to you.

Then, the healed man goes back and tells the Jews that the man who healed him on the Sabbath was Jesus.

The Jews then began to persecute Jesus because he did this on the Sabbath. These Jews, who were teachers of the Old Testament Law, were so protective of honoring the Sabbath, and it was so important to them, that they had 39 categories of activities that were prohibited on the Sabbath. Pallet-carrying was just one of them.

Jesus knew this. He did not heal the man on the Sabbath accidentally. He did it to engage them. So he addressed the Jews with several responses that made them more angry at Jesus, not less angry. Jesus was using the situation of the healing of the cripple to confront the Jews with a message that they had been wrong about some of the spiritual things they were teaching, and let them know that things were in the process of changing.

Analyzing, Poring, and Pointing

39 “You are busy analyzing the Scriptures, poring over them hoping to gain eternal life. Everything you read points to me…”

The Jews who were teachers of the Old Testament Law (sometimes called the Law of Moses) studied the Scriptures. They memorized books of it from childhood. They followed rabbis who were well-studied teachers. They debated what the Law said and how to apply it to life in every context so that they could have eternal life.

They knew what it said.

It was not that their analyzing and poring over the Scriptures were wrong. It was the fact that they missed what it said about Jesus. What they missed was that Jesus, the Messiah, was the one the Scriptures referred to who would bring them eternal life.

Pondering

This kind of shook me a little. It made me ponder what I am looking for when I study the Bible and look for answers to my questions. Am I looking for eternal life?  Or am I looking to have a better life right now?

Maybe I should be asking a different question altogether. Instead of looking at what I’m looking for, perhaps the better question is – which one is Jesus more interested in? This temporary life on earth or eternal life?

KEY TO WHAT’S MISSING – Have an eternal focus. Jesus came to provide a way for those who believe in Him to have eternal life. He did not come to fix this broken world and my broken life.

Enjoying the Praises

v44 – Of course you don’t believe in me.  For you live to enjoy the praises of others and not the praises that come from the one true God.

Let’s take another look at what Jesus is saying to the Jews in verse 44. Remember these Jews were the teachers of the Law. They had studied the Scriptures diligently in order to rise in the ranks of students above other students to become teachers.

Jesus plainly points out the cost of following Him and explains why they are not willing to believe in Him. If any of them were to truly believe what the Old Testament said about the coming Messiah (the Messiah who is Jesus, the one who was speaking to them), then they would be facing a dilemma. Their own understanding of the Scriptures would be at odds with the understanding that their peers held. They would lose the esteem from their peers they had worked so hard to earn. Like most people, that esteem was very important to them. Yet, Jesus verbally prods them by saying that the esteem from their peers was so important that they valued it more than seeking the glory (honor and praise) that comes from pleasing God.

KEY TO WHAT’S MISSING – Seek to please God more than pleasing ourselves or pleasing others.

God gives us over to the desires of our heart. If He is what we seek and desire most, He is what you will get. If you desire something else, besides Him, He will allow you to have what you most desire.

So when we look at Scripture and we try to find the meaning and how to apply it to our lives, we need to keep in mind the two clear choices He has laid before us – seeking to please God and receive eternal life or seeking to please ourselves and others with things of this world.

“Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

“So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart, To walk by their own plans.” Psalm 81:12

“How do you break the cycle?”

“Is there a piece of information or a step that I’m just not getting?  What am I missing here?”

To sum it all up, I think Suzanna is wrestling with a common quandary on how to understand the Bible so we can know God. The keys to what is missing are simple. And to some people they will sound easy, but to most, at least at first, they will seem difficult to carry through.

1. KEY TO WHAT’S MISSING – Truth – Believe the Bible has the answers to our questions. The answers are not found in a special feeling or emotion. The answers are not found in opinions. They are found in the truth that God has revealed in His Word. Our emotions change. Our opinions change. Truth does not change.
2. KEY TO WHAT’S MISSING – Context – Read the Bible enough to understand the situation behind the conversations. Who is the story about? What was happening in the story? What did the message mean to those who originally heard it? And how does that translate to us today?
3. KEY TO WHAT’S MISSING – Eternity – Have an eternal focus when we read. Jesus came to provide a way for those who believe in Him to have eternal life. He did not come to fix this broken world and our broken lives. The good news is, many times our broken lives get fixed when we change our perspective and put the most important things first. The second things (those which are not quite as important as the most important things) have a way of getting fixed, too.
4. KEY TO WHAT’S MISSING – Please God – Choose to seek to please God more than to fulfill our desires to please ourselves or please others. The more God becomes our desire, the more time we will spend in Scripture. The more time we spend in Scripture, the better we will come to know Him. The more we come to know Him, the more we align our desires with what is important to Him. The temporary things of this world take on a different purpose and meaning.

I still don’t know if I was right about Suzanna. Was she really asking the spiritual question, “How can I know God (because right now He seems distant and far away)?” If she was, I believe these four key points can be the keys to unlock what is missing in her life. They are simple enough for her – or for any of us – to apply.

C.S. Lewis recognized the importance of seeking one’s eternal destiny and being satisfied, inwardly, that the reward of eternal life gives one something vastly greater than any fleeting comforts one might possess while still here down below. He ended his book Mere Christianity with an encouragement in that direction:

“Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life.

“Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.

“Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

Once we change our focus from things of this life to things pertaining to the next life, our whole point of view changes. Problems, frustrations, struggles that were once very important begin to diminish. When our hearts and our minds align with the things that are most important to God (and our eternal destiny is what is most important to Him), the cycle stops. We can find rest. We know where we are going and Who we are going to.

 

Me and Suzanna

From where I sit now, I’m in a much different place in my life than Suzanna is. I can look back at the thirty-plus years since I shared her views and I no longer feel left out. I don’t feel like I am missing a piece of the spiritual puzzle any more. I think it’s because I decided just how long I was willing to seek God before I found Him.

And how long was that, you might ask.

A lifetime.

Several scriptures pressed me to continue. They pushed me to not give up. Just from three short verses, the level of commitment I was called to apply in order to find God was taken to the top. In Psalms it told me frequently to seek God – “continually.” In Deuteronomy it told me how fervently to seek God – “with all your heart and all your soul.” In Matthew it told me how consistently to seek God — on and on. In fact, many translators say that the three verbs ask, seek, and knock should have been translated “keep on asking,” “keep on seeking,” and “keep on knocking.” Matthew, like the Psalm prompts us not  to stop.

In my mind, I wrestled with these commands for a while. They drove me to keep going back and reading the Bible. Then one day, while reading in the book of Hebrews, I found that even the believers struggled with hanging on in hard times. Chapter ten of Hebrews as all about people who suffered great things – and suffered because they were believers. They, like me and Suzanna, needed endurance – especially when life was hard, riddled with troubles and wrought with pain. We needed to continue striving through the struggles to know God, to draw near to God. So I prayed for endurance. I prayed for a desire to commit. I prayed to be steadfast. (Hebrews 10:36) I also prayed to be more like Christ, our example, who was faithful His whole life long – even though he was rejected, shamed, and abused.

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. 1 John 2:3

Today, I’m still praying that prayer for endurance. I’m still studying the Bible to know God. I’m still believing God’s promise that He will give us the desire of our hearts – be it things of this world that we desire most or eternal life with Him.

Without faith it is impossible to please God, If we come to Him, we must believe two things – that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 10:39, 11:6)

Let’s diligently seek Him together. I’m right there with you.