{"id":4837,"date":"2013-12-15T00:23:57","date_gmt":"2013-12-15T08:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=4837"},"modified":"2013-12-15T00:23:57","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T08:23:57","slug":"trusting-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2013\/12\/15\/trusting-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Trusting God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. As the men watched, Jesus\u2019 appearance was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white, far whiter than any earthly bleach could ever make them. Then Elijah and Moses appeared and began talking with Jesus.<\/p>\n

\tPeter exclaimed, \u201cRabbi, it\u2019s wonderful for us to be here! Let\u2019s make three shelters as memorials\u2014one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.\u201d He said this because he didn\u2019t really know what else to say, for they were all terrified.<\/p>\n

\tThen a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, \u201cThis is my dearly loved Son. Listen to him.\u201d Suddenly, when they looked around, Moses and Elijah were gone, and they saw only Jesus with them.<\/p>\n

\tAs they went back down the mountain, he told them not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept it to themselves, but they often asked each other what he meant by \u201crising from the dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThen they asked him, \u201cWhy do the teachers of religious law insist that Elijah must return before the Messiah comes?\u201d<\/p>\n

\tJesus responded, \u201cElijah is indeed coming first to get everything ready. Yet why do the Scriptures say that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be treated with utter contempt? But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they chose to abuse him, just as the Scriptures predicted.\u201d (Mark 9:2\u201313)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tTrusting God is not about understanding everything. On the mountain, Jesus became glorious. But Jesus told his disciples to keep it quiet until after his resurrection. They understood about keeping quiet, but the part about \u201crising from the dead\u201d was a puzzler for them. Which is why they then asked Jesus about Elijah coming \u201cfirst.\u201d They wanted to know if maybe Elijah had something to do with that \u201crising\u201d Jesus had told them about. John the Baptist had just been executed by Herod. They knew that John the Baptist was the Elijah that had been predicted. Was he coming back?<\/p>\n

\tBut then Jesus asked them a probing question: if Elijah was supposed to restore all things, then why did Jesus have to suffer and be rejected? Jesus wanted them to understand that his death and resurrection would solve the problem of sin; it would restore the broken relationship that existed between God and humanity. <\/p>\n

\tThe disciples often didn\u2019t understand Jesus. But they still trusted him. We don\u2019t trust God because we understand everything he does, or because we\u2019ve had all our questions answered. We trust God because we know him. Trust is built on a relationship, not answers to questions.<\/p>\n

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Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. As the men watched, Jesus\u2019 appearance was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white, far whiter than any earthly bleach could ever make them. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4837"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4839,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837\/revisions\/4839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}