Sunday, August 19, 2012

We No longer need to live as the Blind (John 9:6-41)


Last week we look at the beginning of John chapter nine, we saw where Christ Healed the blind man.  We talked about how when times are tough, things are not going the way we think God should be allowing them to go that it is during these times that we are able to allow God’s glory to shine the most.  We now see that as the once blind man is walking in his town people are stunned even at disbelief that this is the same man who was blind now he can see.   The people took the man to the Pharisees, the Pharisees ask him “who healed you?”, then they told him “this man is not from God who healed you for He healed you on the Sabbath.”  But they could not shake this man’s belief  that Christ was a man from God.  He was finally excommunicated from the Jews by the Pharisees, since they could no longer accept the truth that was being spoken to them.
This man who grew up Jewish gladly left the Synagogue that day to go and accept that Christ was the Son of God.  Christ came in and changed his life forever, even if he had to leave everything he knew he was not going to back down on who healed him.   We must realize that Christ never said that accepting Him into our lives would make our lives easy.  No we are told throughout all four Gospels that we may have to go through tough times here on earth.  But I think that many in the church in this country have forgotten something very important we are to grow in our relationship with Christ.  We are to walk away from the sin in our lives and put on a new self.  We on the other hand in this country try to say its ok to be a Christian and still walk in the darkness of this world to still go and do what we please.  Some people even say that you sin every day that you cannot help it.  I disagree with that thought, I do not believe that Christ came as the light of the world to die on a cross then rise from the dead, and then send us the Holy Sprite to help us just so we could still live in sin. 
Let us look at the final conversation between this man and Christ.  Christ ask him do you believe in the Son of Man, the man answered show Him to me because I want to believe.   Christ tells him I am the Son of Man, which prompts the man to worship Christ.  Here is the important part Christ says, “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?  Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.”  What is Christ saying here? He is  saying, now that those who lived in the darkness have seen the light they must no longer live in the darkness.  The commentator has this to say, “The Lord’s answer may be paraphrased as follows: “If you admit that you are blind and sinful, and that you need a Savior, then your sins can be forgiven you, and you can be saved. But you profess that you are in need of nothing. You claim that you are righteous and that you have no sin. Therefore, there is no forgiveness of sins for you.” [1]  The first step is admitting that we are sinners and need Christ then the second step is getting to know now Christ.  The closer we are to God and His word the easier it is to follow and be obedient to His Word. 


[1]MacDonald, W. 1997, c1995. Believer's Bible Commentary : Old and New Testaments (Jn 9:41). Thomas Nelson: Nashville

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