Jesus healed a blind man. Rather than rejoicing in the healing, the Pharisees were critical.
click here for an online Bible John 9:1-12
Jesus’ disciples grew up with the understanding that blindness was a result of sin. They were right in one sense. Blindness is a result of being fallen people in a fallen world. But their understanding was that the blindness of this particular man was the result of somebody’s particular sin. Either he was a sinner, or his parents were sinners.
So, their question to Jesus was a natural question in light of their understanding of how things work. Jesus tells them that their line of thinking is wrong. The man’s blindness is not the result of his sin or his parents’ sin. So, why is he blind? He is blind so that God can be glorified by his healing. We view things from our vantage point where we are the center of the universe. We exist to glorify God.
In this story, a man who had been blind since birth was healed by Jesus. A man who had never seen could now see. There was certainly a reason to give glory to God. We have reasons every day to give glory to God.
I need to see the world and my life with the perspective of seeing God. When I see him in my life and the lives of those around me, I give him the glory.
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3 comments:
There are no accidents with the Lord. He knit us together in our mother's womb and counted every hair on our head. As hard as disabilities are to understand, not one of us is a mistake - we are all here for His glory and created the way we are for His purposes.
Many of you know our five year old son, Cody, who is presently about two years old developmentally. We knew when we adopted Cody that he was starting life from a delayed position, but at the time I couldn't have known how much of a blessing his delays would be to me and my walk with Christ.
The Lord reminded me of His sovereignty in creation when Cody was just two years old. I was in a grocery store and ahead of me in the checkout isle was a woman with two older children who had different degrees of autism. The most severe case was a boy 14 years old. At first I thought it interesting to learn his name was Matthew as it that is the name we gave our son Cody at adoption, it is his legal first name.
Her son Matthew acted wildly and grunted sounds with only saying "momma" and "no" as his words. He acted completely opposite of "normal" and she as we talked she was at peace about it.
When I got to my car I burst into tears and asked the Lord to forgive me for my selfishness - I understood it finally. I had to accept my son just as he was - with all of his disabilities and limitations and understand that God created him for a purpose and for His glory. It is my pleasure and privilege to see him grow up and mature - but if he never grows into "normal" I am still to love him and accept that he is precious in God's sight. Oh, how I love that little boy - he is such a true challenge and blessing to me.
It isn't an easy walk to travel and we are not saints to have Cody as our son as some people think - but we are God's workmanship and with His grace covering us we can live according to His purpose - and grow in the process.
Thank you bobbie.
One of the things I found difficult with today's lesson is how could the disciples ask was the blindness a result of the man's own sin. My understanding of sin leads me to believe that the man could not possibly sin while still in the womb or even as a baby or toddler. So, one way could be to look at sin as not being limited by the current acts of the individual but also future acts. Although this is one way to try to understand the question that the blindness from birth could be a result of the man's own sin, I 'd like to know if anyone else understood this differently.
There is something else about this miracle... I keep thinking of Moses and the pharaoh. Just as Moses performed miracles before the king of Egypt and the king's sorcerers would imitate the miracle that Moses would do and the king would be hardened -- similarly here Jesus seems to be performing increasingly more difficult miracles to reproduce or explain away -- only to further harden the religious leaders.
My take away from this is that this is that we need to be watchful / sensitive to the hardening of unbelievers and with fervent prayer intercede on their behalf, but the Lord's will be accomplished, and ask for His revelation in the matter. I am still searching for more concrete examples...
Thank you.
Love,
EJ
I wanted to touch briefly on versus four and five. A couple of keywords are used: "WE," "work," "day," "night," "light." I like how Jesus includes us in His work. The work is to believe in/on Christ, when we believe in Christ we do the things/miracles as Christ did them, in so doing these things we give others reasons to believe and increase in their faith. The "day" is the out pouring of the Spirit. So, "night" is the removal of the Spirit via the rapture(?). Jesus said He is the "light," (enough said?). Interesting note, Jesus says He is in the world, we know Jesus is at the right hand of the Father today (Acts 7:56). So, we are the light of the world today. Amen?
What does this mean? In summary, we ought to be able to say we are Christ -- no more no less. We are His ambassadors, therefore we must be perfect as He is perfect, and call upon the power of the Holy Spirit to do the things as our Big Brother does in these pages of scripture we read. We need to take Him at His word... if He cast demons out of people we should be doing the same... I'm taking it a step further beyond just intercessory prayer and moving to the fiery commands of casting out demons. But how? I do not know yet, but as for now, I'm saying it in Faith and you best believe I will be searching this one out.
Love,
EJ
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