Being With Jesus:
John 8:20 (NLT)
The Jewish leaders tried to arrest Jesus; but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come. (John 7:30, 8:20)
Twice we are told in John 7 and 8 that the Jewish leaders, increasingly threatened by Jesus, tried to arrest him, but couldn’t. The reason they couldn’t? Because Jesus’ time had not yet come!
Several times in John, Jesus reveals his total awareness and complete submission to God’s timetable. In John 2:4, Jesus tells his mother, who is insisting that he perform the miracle of turning water into wine, that this is not the right time for him to “go public” with his ministry. In John 12:23 and 27, Jesus is revealing to his disciples that he will be crucified as a part of God’s redemptive plan for mankind. He is grappling with that reality as a man (his own suffering and death) and as deity (taking into himself the world’s sin), but at the end of the day, he is willing to submit to the beautiful but awful reality of dying on the cross—because the hour—the perfect time—has come. In John 13:1, Jesus reveals his perfect love to his disciples by washing their feet, knowing that the hour of his arrest and crucifixion was at hand. Speaking of which, in John 17:1, Jesus realizes the weightiness of God’s hour—the ultimate triumph of Divine life over death through the cross—is now upon him, so he offers his moving “high priestly” prayer that we have come to know and love.
We may think time marches on, unimpeded by fate, uncontrolled by human planning or Divine intervention, but Jesus had a different view of time. And why not, as the Word, the creative agent of the Holy Trinity, he had created time and gifted it to the Father as servant to his eternal plan. Jesus knew that time was in God’s wise and loving hands—ever day, ever hour and every split second!
A man named David had also come into that revelation. In Psalm 139, King David wrote, “Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139:16) David knew and relied upon this immutable truth that Jesus was depending on, that God knew the exact number of days that David would live, and he would not die a day sooner nor live a day longer than what God had foreordained. And for David, nothing could change that—not betrayal, not war, not poverty, not disease—nothing. God alone held that power over David’s life and foreknew the hour of David’s death.
That’s why David and Jesus found this world a perfectly safe place. That’s why even in the midst of his crisis, they could calmly walk into the storm, courageously walk into battle, fearlessly face the angel of death—circumstances that would cause ordinary humans to lose heart—because they knew it was the Lord who was sustaining them.
When you understand that your life—your days, your hour, your time—is in the sovereign hand of God, you just think that way; you just live your life that way. Time—your time—is servant to the Master’s plan.
Arthur W. Pink wrote, “A consciousness of our powerlessness should cast us upon Him who has all power. Here then is where a vision and view of God’s sovereignty helps, for it reveals His sufficiency and shows us our insufficiency.”
Yes, God is sovereign, and he had infinitely large hands. And like Jesus and David, your life is there in his hands too. You know that…or maybe you don’t. But even if you don’t, that truth remains firm, and because of the saving faith that you have expressed in Jesus Christ, your address has permanently changed to God’s hands.
It’s high time you starting enjoying your new time zone.