East Arlington Baptist Church, 40040 48th Street, Lawrence, MI (2026)

06/08/2026

God Is Still On The Throne

When death comes in an unexpected way, for example in a sudden accident, or in cases where a young child suddenly dies, there is always a sense that this was not meant to be. We are left reeling at the ambush of fate. This sensation of being caught off guard can sometimes lead us to feel as if God was also surprised, since He didn’t provide us with enough warning or preparation time, as when we are diagnosed with a terminal illness and supplied with a prognosis of time.

But the Bible assures us that God is absolutely sovereign over life and death. He is never caught off guard, He is never surprised at events. No, God ordains everything to the minutest detail. This is the truth that brings peace and rest to a heart that is staggering under the dizzying sucker-punch of sudden loss.

Matthew 10:29-31 says “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

This is a precious and profound reality that needs to be impressed on the grieving heart.

J.C.Ryle writes “Happy is that man who can walk in our Lord's steps, and say, “I shall have what is good for me. I shall live on earth till my work is done, and not a moment longer. I shall be taken when I am ripe for heaven, and not a minute before. All the powers of the world cannot take away my life, till God permits. All the physicians on earth cannot preserve it, when God calls me away.”

In the case of Lazarus, the Bible says “When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

There is a difference between God saying yes to your prayer for your specific need and saying yes to your prayer to show you His glory. We can be assured that our belief in Jesus’ promise means we will someday understand how God used our pain to glorify Himself.

Life won’t quit hurting, but neither will Jesus quit caring. If you will trust Him, He will show you His glory.

Remember that death is not the end. Also remember that there could be meaning in this tragedy. That the death would not be meaningless.

The tragedy of atheistic belief is that everything is ultimately objectively meaningless. Death becomes the ultimate tragedy, because it is the final end of life. But our hearts protest against that. We want, we need for there to be meaning, even in tragedy. And in the gospel, there is.

May the Lord use this devotional to convince you that God is still on the throne and that some of your very best days are still ahead, days filled with meaning and significance, as you allow Him to use your hurt to help and encourage others. And that is a glory worth living for.

Prayer: Lord I thank you that you are still on the throne and even through the loss of my loved one, you will glorify Your name and make something beautiful of my life. Amen

Devotion - Vijay Thangiah

06/07/2026

East Arlington Baptist Church

06/05/2026

Death Is A Part Of Life

Death is almost always a topic we shy away from. Many are not comfortable with it. Some even fear it. But death is a part of life.

It was George Barnard Shaw who said that the statistics on death are very staggering – “one of every one person dies.” Death is the only certain thing in this life.

God never promised us that we or our loved ones wouldn’t die. In fact, He promised exactly the opposite--everyone dies. Hebrews 9:27 tells us “And it was appointed unto men once to die; but after this the judgment.”

Everyone dies. God has not broken any promises when He lets people die. He has simply allowed what He said would happen, to happen. Ever since Adam and Eve brought death and decay into our world, death has been part of the bargain. So, we need to be prepared for death.

In John 11:11, we see how tenderly Christ speaks of the death of believers. He announces the fact of Lazarus being dead in a language of singular beauty and gentleness—“Our friend Lazarus sleeps.”

Psychologists tell us that Thanatophobia, the fear of death, is the root of all the other fears. If you have a spirit of fear, you did not get it from God. You get rid of fear in your life by replacing it with faith. When faith comes, fear goes! Fear leaves when faith comes!

Jesus has already taken the sting out of death for those who have received Him as their Savior (1 Cor. 15:55-57). Through Jesus’ victory over death, He delivers “them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14-15). For the child of God trusting the Lord, death holds no terror, but rather affords a glorious anticipation of release from the limitations of this earthly life into the liberation of the heavenly life. As Paul said, “To die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).

When cancer took the wife of Donald Barnhouse, leaving him with three children all under 12, he thought of how to bring a message of hope to his children. When they were driving to the funeral service, a large truck passed them, casting a noticeable shadow across their car. Turning to his oldest daughter, who was staring sadly out the window, Barnhouse asked, "Tell me, sweetheart, would you rather be run over by that truck or its shadow?" Looking curiously at her father, she replied, "By the shadow, I guess. It can't hurt you." Speaking to all his children, he said, "Your mother has not been overridden by death, but by the shadow of death. That is nothing to fear."

The countdown to death begins at birth. The Bible is not afraid to speak of death: it calls it what it is. But at the very centre of Christianity is the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The cross is where Jesus enters into the grief and suffering of the world; he experiences the abandonment and depth of death. In the resurrection, Jesus breaks the power of death; it is no longer a full stop lingering over humanity; it is redefined in Him and He offers us life eternal.

If our theology is only that of the cross, we miss the hope and the joy of the Gospel.

If our theology is only of resurrection then we can’t understand suffering or make any sense of it, let alone be comfortable to sit with it.

We need both – the cross and the resurrection.

Quote: Where sin has been removed death can only interrupt the earthly life and usher in the heavenly.-John MacArthur

Prayer: Lord, I thank you that death is not the end, but the beginning of life. Amen

Devotion - Vijay Thangiah

06/04/2026

Hope In The Midst Of Grief

God can still interject a BUT!

When Jesus received word that Lazarus was sick. Jesus’ response to the news was “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be gloriﬁed through it.”

After two days He told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

He waited to go “so that they might believe.” The delays of God always have a purpose. There are greater depths of faith that He wants to take us. He had already shown them that He could heal; now He was teaching them that He had power over even death. This would only be possible if He delayed.

Is it possible that in God’s timing, in God’s seeming absence, that He wants to teach you something greater, something more meaningful, something that you don’t already know?

Can you humble yourself enough to accept this? Can you believe that if God is big enough to create everything, then He is big enough to have a reason for allowing your suffering that you cannot understand? Can that help you to trust, knowing that God is perfect in His love, justice, and sovereignty, sees the end from the beginning, and knows what He is doing, even when you can’t comprehend it?

Have you prayed for your loved one’s healing and yet your beloved one died?

You may think that it is all over. BUT God still says, “My name will be glorified through it.” Do you believe it?

In John 17:24, we read words that, on close and prayerful reflection, should be very near to our hearts when a loved one dies. Carefully consider the desire of Jesus: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

He desires that His people be with Him. Jesus is completely happy and satisfied as He reigns from heaven, but according to His prayer in John 17, He still has a certain unfulfilled desire: that His people join Him in the home He has already prepared for them (John 14:2–4).

When a loved one who knows the Lord dies, we should remember first and foremost that the Father has answered Jesus’s prayer. God is sovereign over our loved ones’ deaths, and He has purposes we may never understand, but we can cling to the truth that Jesus has prayed to His Father to bring His people home. When a Christian dies, the Father is granting the answer to His Son’s request.

We can at least say this much: When a loved one dies, Jesus gains a lot more than we have lost.

Yes, we have lost. We will never again share sweet fellowship with that loved one. The magnitude of the loss often eludes our words. But the loss is never beyond Jesus’ words: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory.”

We may shed enough tears to fill buckets, but those streams of tears running down our cheeks will glisten with joy when we realize that our loved one’s death is nothing less than an answer to Jesus’s prayer.

Here we see hope.

Quote: Christians never say “good bye”; just “until we meet again” – Woodrow Kroll

Prayer: Lord I thank you that in the midst of grief that we can have hope that soon we will meet our loved ones again. Amen

Devotion - Vijay Thangiah

06/03/2026

“Where Was God In All Of This?”

In our darkest moments, we can live our lives filled with resentment stomping the ground and shaking our fists at God in a heated rage asking, “Where was God in all of this?” Or, we can put our faith in the lordship of Jesus over life and death.

The reason why we get agitated when God does not respond according to our wishes is that we want God to perform on cue; we want him to do whatever we ask; we want to boss him around. We may not say it in so many words, but this is another way of saying, we want to be God instead of letting God be God. That is why we keep complaining when God doesn’t do what we ask.

All of us want miracles in our lives. Miracles are nice; but they don’t solve our deepest problem. Yes, we would rather have a nice life than a miserable one; we would rather live a normal life than a tumultuous one. But in the end, none of us will have as much control as we would like. We will suffer losses; we will face death of our loved ones, our children will experience pain and disappointment; our lives will not go as planned. Life will not turn out as we had imagined, expected, and hoped for.

“One of the things you find in people who haven’t suffered much is that they tend to believe in propriety,” wrote Dallas Willard. He’s right. We need to set aside preconceptions about what and how we expected our loved one’s death — and our grief — to look like.

But the beauty of it all is that Jesus Christ offers something more and better than miracles of health and healing in this world. We don’t have to witness a bringing back to life, as did Mary and Martha. We have the assurance that God is with us. We can put our trust in the words of Jesus who said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”

Remember that God is not just crying with us. He brings resurrection and life out of death.

In the incident of Jesus and Lazarus, Jesus is the real miracle of the story; he is the final and ultimate answer to prayer. He is the resurrection and the life. Not resuscitation but resurrection. Not reversal but renewal. Jesus defeated sin and death and hell.

If we believe in him—John’s point throughout the story—then we will have life, real, permanent, abundant, substantial, eternal life. If we die, we will still experience that life. But even now we can experience that life because it is bigger than both the life that we know and the death that we dread. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Then Jesus adds, “Do you believe this?” This is the question we need to ask ourselves when we have the question “Where was God in all of this?”

The answer to this question is that He was and is very much with us, offering us His resurrection life. Will you take up His offer and experience new life in the midst of grief?

Quote: “When pain and suffering come upon us, we finally see not only that we are not in control of our lives but that we never were.” – Timothy Keller

Prayer: Lord I thank you for helping me to understand that during the times when I questioned your presence, You were very much near. Help me to see and believe this. Amen

Devotion - Vijay Thangiah

06/02/2026

It Is Okay To Have Questions

You may also have several questions about death and dying. It’s okay to feel uncomfortable, sad, or angry when someone dies, and it’s okay to ask questions.

Martha and Mary are grieving. Their brother Lazarus was dead and they had buried him four days ago. They had sent a message to Jesus to tell him of his illness. They had hoped that He would have rushed to their assistance. Surely he could have done something. But days passed and Jesus had not come and now Lazarus was dead and buried. And they and their friends were mourning.

So when Jesus came to visit them after Lazarus died, Martha says to Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Martha expresses anger about her brother’s death. Many people are like Martha—they become angry when someone close to them dies. And it’s interesting that Jesus is not frustrated with Martha for being angry. Jesus understands that it is natural for us to feel angry when someone we love dies. God understands how we feel.

Have you had any ‘if’ questions or ‘why’ questions for God like “Lord, if you had been here, my mother would not have gotten so sick. The accident would not have occurred if... Why did my loved one die? Why did my husband die? Why my wife? Why did tragedy strike us? If I had admitted my husband earlier to the hospital would it have saved him? If I had taken better care for her, would she still be alive? Why did God not answer my prayers? Where was God in all of this? Why didn’t God show up?”

Ask the why questions. Even if they are things you know intellectually make no sense. Even if you get medical reasons or other information that explains the death, the answers will still not be satisfactory.

Mary reacted differently from Martha. Mary cries and weeps a lot. She may have been angry, too, but Mary is mostly sad. The Bible says that Mary came to Jesus, fell at his feet, and wept uncontrollably. She did not hold back her tears. And notice that Jesus didn’t tell her to stop crying. Jesus understands our sadness. It is natural and normal for us to be sad when someone we love dies.

Death can cause us to feel many different emotions. People react differently to death. Through his reactions to his grieving friends, Jesus says, “That’s okay. Everyone responds differently.” Jesus does not condemn Martha’s anger or Mary’s sadness. What Jesus wants us to know is that he is always with us, comforting and assuring us whenever we are grieving.

So, go ahead. Spend time alone asking God your questions. He understands. When you realize you’re never going to find a satisfying “why,” allow your “why” to shift to how. How am I going to move forward after this loss?

You will be surprised to know that you are not alone in your doubts and that you’re set free to express your true feelings to God. You will be comforted to know that Jesus’ heart is breaking with yours. And when you discover how to experience His most intimate care, you will know why your suffering means that your greatest impact and influence for God is in front of you.

Prayer: Lord I thank you that you are not frustrated when I pour out my questions to you. Help me to find rest in you, knowing that even though I may not get all the answers, you are stlll in control. Amen

Devotion - Vijay Thangiah

06/01/2026

It Is Okay To Grieve

When someone we love dies, we often feel many different emotions. No, it is not wrong to cry or mourn. The reality that God is in control and it will all work out in the long run doesn’t discount the pain we feel here and now.

God understands how terrible and painful dealing with death can be. We get a good example of how God views death from when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus shows us that it is ok to grieve when He wept at the grave of Lazarus. He shows us that it is not sinful to feel sorrow. He shows us that intense feeling is not a thing of which we need be ashamed.

Jesus cried like we cry. He shed tears like we shed tears. He was moved like we are moved. Jesus wept, which showed he had a heart. This shows us that we do not serve a God who is unmoved by what happens to us. So don’t be afraid to take your concerns to God.

Hebrews 4:15 tells us "We don’t have a high priest who can't be touched with the feeling of our inﬁrmities" Jesus is moved in our afflictions.

Jesus also mourned when his dear friend and cousin, John the Baptist was put to death.

His reactions to both these deaths was different. And we can learn from His experience on how to grieve.

In Matthew 14:13, we find that when Jesus heard the news about John the Baptist’s death, he got on a boat and went to a desolate place. Jesus was grieving. He was heartbroken to hear what happened to John. And Jesus wanted to just spend some time alone, praying and thinking.

There would be many a time when you would just want to be alone in your grief, thinking through issues and spending time with God and asking Him many questions. This is perfectly okay.

But we read that the crowd when they hear where Jesus was going, travelled by foot and met Jesus on the other side.

Have you ever felt like that? All you want to do is get away and be by yourself and grieve, but the demands of life don't allow it?

How did Jesus respond to this situation? The Bible says that when He saw the crowd he had compassion on them and immediately got to work healing their sick. Although Jesus grieved the loss of his dear friend, his grief empowered him for ministry. In the midst of his emotional pain, Jesus turned outward instead of inward. Rather than turning in on himself and thinking "woe is me", he turns outward to serve and to love the crowds.

We must be very careful that in our mourning we don't turn our sorrow into self-pity and loathing. Our sorrow empowers us to love and serve others. All that hurt, all those emotions you feel, take them and use them to show compassion on people who desperately need the love of Jesus.

This is often the key to move on in life in the midst of grief. The more we spend time looking inward, we will be stuck in the past. When we begin to look outward and serve others, we move to the future.

Prayer: Lord, I thank you that you understand my sorrow. I come to you for help and strength in my grief. Amen

Devotion - Vijay Thangiah

05/29/2026

300 water bottles were handed out this evening to attendees at the Lawrence High School commencement ceremony. Congratulations to the Class of 2026!

Thanks to the EAB families who donated water bottles for this event.

East Arlington Baptist Church

06/08/2026

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