There's a part in scripture that we either read too fast or we shout it way too slow.
The tomb that Jesus was buried in was borrowed. You don't borrow what you plan to keep.
And you don't borrow what you know you're going to give back. The spirit said to me, Sarah, tell them this. The pain is a borrowed place. It's not a permanent address.
Jesus died between thieves.
But he was buried like a king. In a rich man's untouched tomb, wrapped in prophecy, guarded by soldiers, sealed by stone. But it still was just borrowed.
Because the grave was never his actual destination. It was only a doorway.
It wasn't a full stop. It was a comma, a hinge, a hallway, a holy pause before the whole earth shook with glory. And just like that, friend, your heartbreak, it's a borrowed tomb.
Your exhaustion is a borrowed tomb. Your valley is a borrowed tomb.
Your battle is a borrowed tomb. Your warfare season is a borrowed tomb. You may be buried in something that you did not choose. But you will not stay in what God never meant to contain you.
Because pain when placed in God's hands is never possession. It is only transition.
Jesus only needed the grave for three days. Your healing may take longer, but it is still temporary.
Still borrowed, still marked. Returned to sender, still destined to be emptied, friend, in front of every demon that tried to keep you there. The stone was not rolled away so Jesus could get out. He could have walked through walls. It rolled away so you could see in.
It rolled away so you could see that nothing that you're facing has the authority to hold you when heaven says this is temporary.
Come on now.
Joseph of Arimathea lent Jesus his tomb and Jesus returned it better than he found it.
Friend, lined with folded linen and eternal victory. If the Son on of God can walk out of a borrowed grave, then daughter of God, son of God, you can walk out of whatever, borrowed; pain, borrowed; your fear, borrowed; your sleepless nights, borrowed; your season of heaviness, borrowed; your current battle, borrowed.
It may wrap you for a moment, but it cannot keep you because it is borrowed.
Because heaven already stamped your situation with three words. This won't last.
What is built of dust cannot hold what is breathed by eternity. What is meant for death cannot contain resurrection life. What was meant to bury you becomes the backdrop of your breakthrough.
Friend, beloved, hear me now. If the grave was temporary for Jesus, then a struggle is temporary for you. You are not dying in this. You are passing through it. You are not sinking in this. You are being set up in it. You are not ending here. You are emerging here.
Because every borrowed tomb has one purpose, friend. It is to become the place where God proves that pain ends and resurrection will begin. Amen.
Nobody ever tells you that following Jesus feels like this. They talk about it like it's soft, like it's clean, like it's a quiet classroom with neat little lessons and predictable tests. But the real ones know the school for disciplehip is in the climb.
The classroom is in the incline.
The teaching is in the tension. The shaping is in the strain.
Disciplehip is not a seat. It's a step and another step and another step after the step you didn't feel like taking in the first place.
Every hill you push through, every moment you whisper yes when your flesh is screaming no. Every time you follow anyway, that is the formation.
Because in the transfiguration, Jesus did not sit Peter, James, and John down in a synagogue and lecture them about glory. He did not hand them a scroll labeled transfiguration 101. He took them up a mountain and he said nothing. Why?
Because the climb was the curriculum.
The incline was the instruction.The strain was the shaping. The silence was the lesson. The mountain was the mentorship. You see, he was teaching them with terrain, training them with tension, breaking them open with the very gravity that they were walking up against. Jesus was showing them and showing us that disciplehip does not happen in the comfort of level ground.
Discipleship is the climb up. It is obedience when you are winded. It is trust when the visibility is low. It is surrender when the path is steepening.
It is humility when your pace is slowing. It is endurance when your legs are burning and your pride breaks and your opinions are falling off like loose stones behind you. You see, the mountain was never blocking them. It was building them. The mountain was not in the way.
The mountain was the way. Every step stripped off the excess.
Every step stretched the spirit. Every step carved away what couldn't go higher. and it brought it higher. Every step taught them what a sermon never could. You see, the climb turns followers into disciples. Because discipleship is not proven by how loudly you shout, "Lord, Lord," but how willingly you will climb when he whispers, "Come!"
And Jesus waited until they reached that breaking, gasping sweat on their neck place to reveal himself. Not because they earned it, but because the climb was positioning them to carry the weight of what they were about to see. The transfiguration is not the lesson. The climb was the glow is not the graduation. He was not showing off his divinity. He was showing them a pattern.
If you want to know me deeply, you must follow me uphill. Not around the mountain, not under the mountain, not waiting at the bottom for an easier season up.
So yes, the climb it hurts. The climb exposes, it strips, it humbles, disciplines, it matures. But the climb is also what makes you a disciple.
It is not the mountain that makes you a disciple disciple. It is not the moment of revelation. It is not the vision. It is not the glow. It is not the glory.
It is the climb. It is the climb. It is the climb. Because in the uphill that you learn him. It's in the uphill that you become like him. It's in the uphill that disciplehip becomes more than belief. It becomes obedience.
And sometimes, friend, the mountain is the only teacher tough enough to make you look like Jesus. We measure everything.
Money, relationships, our future because measuring feels like control.
And control feels like protection.
But God will snatch that ruler right out of your hand.
If you don't believe me, go to Zechariah 2.
There's someone there running with a measuring line like the promise of God depends on human precision.
He's trying to build walls to feel safe. And honestly, we do the same thing.
Walls of fear. Walls of doubt. Walls built from trauma stacked with whatifs. But God interrupts him.
Stop sizing the safety. l am the protection. They wanted a wall around them. But God wanted glory within them.
They planned bricks, but God promised fire. And here is what hits our generation. That promise didn't pop up in a week or two.
It took 500 plus years for that I will dwell among you, the Word to become a real king in a manger. Not because God was slow but because we were not ready.
God does do overnight miracles. Yes, but he also does overtime maturity.
The blessing was not behind schedule. Our character was.
The Messiah was not delayed. The mindset was. He was not waiting on the birth of Jesus. He was waiting on the breaking of pride, the bending of knees, the building of faith, the burning away of what can't stand the glory coming.
God refuses to drop a king level promise into a kindergarten level heart. That 500 plus year gap. Between Old testament , Malachi and New Testament, Matthew. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Malachi 4:6
Turning the heart of the children to their fathers
It was training. It was transforming. It was turning wanderers into worshippers and history into a stage for glory.
See, God doesn't only prepare the place. He prepares the people.
So, if the promise has not shown up yet, don't assume late when it might just be loading. He's not running behind. He is running ahead.
Paving the road your promise will walk in on. Delay is not denial. Waiting is not wasted. The gap where God grows you into the person who can hold what he's about to give. Not because God was slow, but because the blessing was too big to be delivered to who you used to be.
Amen.
Lyrics: What A Beautiful Day For The Lord To Come Again
(Writer(s): Monty Powell, Chris Cagle)
¹ As I wake up with the morning of each day that passes by,
And I listen to the sounds upon my ear;
I can't help but keep a watch toward the eastern sky,
And I wonder if the trumpet will be the next sound that I hear.
What a beautiful day for the Lord to come again,
What a beautiful day for Him to take His children home;
How I long to see His face and to touch His nail-scarred hands,
What a beautiful day for the Lord to come again.
² Oh my earthly disappointments and trials here below,
Fade away when I remember His last words;
He said He'd return and receive His children unto Him,
And I'm longing just to look upon the face of my Lord.
Oh, what a beautiful day for the Lord to come again,
What a beautiful day for Him to take His children home;
How I long to see His face and to touch His nail-scarred hands,
What a beautiful day for the Lord to come again.
What a beautiful day for the Lord to come again,
Again!
( Listen to the song here )
