SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/19/2016 10:03 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Spiritual Sight Recognizes Christ
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 9:27-38b
Message of the verses: “37 Jesus said to him, "You have both
seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you." 38 And he said,
"Lord, I believe.’”
As we read
through the NT Gospels we do not see the Lord tell others that He is the Christ
too often, that is in a direct way like we see it here and also in John 4:26
where we have seen for the first time He made this known, and that was to a
woman, and the woman was a Samaritan where He said to her “I who speak to you
am He.” The Samaritan woman had referred
to the coming Messiah and so that was Jesus’ response to her.
Now in are
verses today Jesus tells the formerly blind beggar “You have both seen Him, and
He is the one who is talking to you.”
The man then answered Jesus by saying “Lord, I believe.” Think for a moment what has happened to the
blind beggar over the last two days of his life. He gets up in the morning to find his way to
the place where he has to beg for money in order to survive, as he takes up his
place in the outer part of the temple.
Perhaps no one had given him any money that day, perhaps he was depressed
over this. Along come some men who begin
to talk to each other about how and why this man was born blind. Now how would you like to hear that
conversation? He hears one of the men
say that it was for the glory of God and the man wonders in amazement what that
could mean. Next one of the men makes
some clay and applies it to his blind eyes and tells him to go and was in the
pool of Siloam and perhaps he knows that this means sent and so he goes and
does as the man tells him. One may
wonder how he can get to this pool for he was blind, but being blind all of his
life I don’t think that this would have been a problem for his hearing and
smelling were greater than a person with proper sight. As he washes off the clay he can see for the
very first time in his life. How do you
think that he feels about that? I can’t imagine
the thrill that was going on inside this man as he could see now.
As he goes
home to talk to his parents and to his neighbors the joy that he was feeling
quickly goes away as they ask him questions and the next day he is led off to
talk to the Pharisees to explain how he was healed. By the end of his conversation he is thrown
out of the synagogue, but for some reason I don’t think that this bothered him
at all. Next we see Jesus coming to talk
to him because he was thrown out of the synagogue and talks to him about
something far better that being involved in a false religion, for indeed the
religious leaders of that time had turned the Jewish religious system into
something that was not pleasing to God.
Jesus asked
him if he believed in the Son of Man and the man answered by asking who He was
and now we get into our verses for today as Jesus reveals to this man that it
was He who was the Son of Man. This Man
that this blind beggar had been standing up for turns out to be the Messiah and
so once again this man’s eyes were opened, this time in a spiritual sense and
now he even feels greater joy than when his physical eyes were opened.
John
MacArthur writes “Unhesitatingly, the man said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ The Spirit of God had opened his heart to the
truth (cf. 3:5-8), revealing to him Jesus’ true identity (cf. Matt.
16:16-17). He exemplified the principle
Jesus enumerated in 7:17, ‘If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of
the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.’ Jesus never turns away those whom the Father
gives Him; as He Himself said, ‘the one who comes to Me I will certainly not
cast out’ (6:37).”
We have
been watching over the last couple of months Jesus telling the truth that He is
the Messiah to many religious leaders and others but no one has responded to
His truthful teaching and now this formerly blind beggar hers the truth and
immediately believes on Jesus. Now I
have to believe that I had heard the truth that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and
heard the plan of salvation before January of 1974, but I can’t remember it
until that day, the 26th of January when it was as if I had never
heard it again as my spiritually blind eyes were opened and I responded the
same way that this man did and I began to do what this man immediately did and
we will look at that in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: The gospel of John has caused me to remember
the wonderful way that God saved me as we have been studying it. John chapter three talks about the Spirit
being like the wind although you can’t see the wind you can see the effects it
has, and I could not see the wind of the Spirit but His effects I could surely
see. As the blind man’s eyes were opened
so were mine and I am thankful to the Lord for giving me eternal life and
praise His name forever for this gracious way He saved me.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: As I partake of the Lord’s
table I want to remember the great salvation that was provided to me through
Jesus Christ.
Memory verses for the week:
(Romans 6:1-4) “1. What shall we
say then? Are we to continue in sin that
grace may increase? 2. May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in
it? 3.
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ
Jesus have been baptized into His death.
4. Therefore we have been buried
with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “100” (Luke 15:4).
Today’s Bible question:
“Who said ‘"Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD?’”
Answer in our next SD
7/19/2016 10:49 AM
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