Light Will Either Blind You or Make You See - John 9
Brenda Harris
Think back to the last time you had to get up early. Barely awake, you turned on a light. Do you remember that feeling? When the light flooded your eyes, you were blinded temporarily. Did feel like turning the light off and going back to the darkness of your sleep? But because you knew you needed to get up, you allowed your eyes to adjust to the light and began your morning routine.
Monday through Friday this happens to me as I rise before it is daylight to get my children off to school. My bed calls me to return to my slumber, but my brain chooses to get up and turn on the light because I know my children need my help.
This daily occurrence, provides a helpful spiritual analogy as it relates to John 9. At the beginning of this chapter we meet a man who is born blind and has not yet put his faith in Jesus. Jesus heals him on the Sabbath and the Jewish leadership is very unhappy about this breech of their law. They miss entirely that no healing like this has ever occurred before and yet, all they seem to want to do is discredit Jesus and His miracle. They refuse to accept Jesus as their long awaited Messiah and therefore reject the miracle He performed. In addition, they also excommunicate the formerly blind man. Jesus meets up with this man who can now see after the man has been expelled from the synagogue. At this point, the man chooses to put his faith in Christ. This is a powerful story with deep significance.
So let’s go back to our spiritual analogy. When I am awakened from my sleep, I have a choice to make. I can either go back to bed and hope that my kids will magically get to school on their own or I can get up and turn on the light and start the day. Likewise, in a spiritual sense, the enemy would love for me to go back to sleep. He encourages me to turn off the conviction of the Holy Spirit, hit the snooze button on the confession of my sin and delay waking to the deliverance and freedom God offers me.
God desires that we walk in the newness of light He provides day after day. The light that He sheds on our circumstances can either offend us (like the Pharisees) and make us retreat into the darkness or we can allow it to make us see (like the formerly blind man). If we allow the light to come on, it might hurt our eyes a bit initially but eventually it will make us see and like the blind man we can say, “though I was blind, now I see.”
Spiritual blindness is real. But God offers us His unique light so that we can see His truth and receive the healing He provides. When we do there is amazing freedom. This is where we are headed this week in our time together on Thursday and I cannot wait to see each of you.
Much love
Brenda
PS – This is our last meeting until January 28, 2015.