Jesus describes Himself as a door, a gate, a portal. In other words, an escape hatch. He has come to free us from a meaningless existence and liberate us to a life filled with adventure. He has come to lead us out of the mundane and into the extraordinary. Strangely enough we find it hard to trust Him, while all the time He has been trying to lead us out of the dark dungeons we have created for ourselves and let us run free in the light of day. When we come to Him, he translates us into an entirely new realm of living. His promise is that in Him we will find the life that our hearts have always longed for. Jesus was crucified as a criminal, but what His accusers didn’t know was that He was planning and fulfilling history’s most extraordinary prison break.
Expectations
Dawna De Silva
When we ask God to protect us, we can be held back by our need to see God perform in an anticipated way. This action might make us miss the next step that we are supposed to take. We must never approach God with expectations of how He will answer or with specific time frames that we require. Quiet trust does not make God prove Himself. It says, God will protect me the way He wants. What I get to do is follow Him.
C.S. Lewis
This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.
Ruth Graham
It is a foolish woman who expects her husband to be to her that which only Jesus Christ Himself can be: always ready to forgive, totally understanding, unendingly patient, invariably tender and loving, unfailing in every area, anticipating every need, and making more than adequate provision. Such expectations put a man under an impossible strain.
Chris Jackson
Heartsickness occurs after constant disappointment. We thought we had an appointment with the promise, but it didn’t come to pass. Out of our disappointment, we became heartsick and stopped setting appointments. We stopped hoping, and consequently, we became critical and cynical; and these never enter through the veil. If we don’t do something at this point, our quest for destiny will end here.
Edwin Peterman
The only way you can be delivered from that sin is to have your false expectations destroyed, once and for all. And that is precisely what happened between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Jesus drew the false, sinful expectations of the world unto himself, absorbed them, and bore them on the cross. His death was the death of all of our false expectations, and therefore his death was the death of sin itself. The false piety of Palm Sunday is crucified on Good Friday and buried that night, in order that true faith in God might be created on Easter through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
A.B. Simpson
Our God has boundless resources. The only limit is in us. Our asking, our thinking, our praying are too small. Our expectations are too limited.
Matthew Henry
We cannot expect too little from man, nor too much from God.
Madeleine L’Engle
We have false expectations of our holy days, of our churches, of each other. We have false expectations of our friends. Jesus did not. He had expectations, but they were not false, and when they were not met, he did not fall apart. He was never taken in by golden calves! Friendship not only takes time, it takes a willingness to drop false expectations, of ourselves, of each other. Friends – or lovers – are not always available to each other. Inner turmoils can cause us to be unhearing when someone needs us, to need to receive understanding when we should be giving understanding.
Tom Marshall
Man still retains within himself the need to love a perfect object that will never disappoint him and to be himself loved totally and unconditionally. These needs can be met only in a relationship with God Himself. Otherwise, we go on demanding unattainable absolutes from human beings.