God’s Cure for Spiritual Blindness

 

It’s possible that those who call themselves Christian have learned all they know about Christianity from a textbook, or a preacher, or what they read or imagine other than what the Bible says. Because it appeals to them, they believe it but when the events of life do not match what they have been told, they become confused and doubtful.

I’ve read that I am not to accept any conception of what I see in Christ, no matter how strongly or logically it is presented. Even that statement is contrary to “what I see” because my understanding of the identity of Jesus was not told to me or explained by humans. I was revealed by the Spirit of God and for that reason, I shake my head at anything I hear to the contrary.

Years ago, a pair of cult members came to my door and questioned my understanding of Christ with “Who taught you that?” They insisted I must have been indoctrinated by others whose idea of Jesus was not the same as theirs, and that their ‘source’ was more reliable than mine. I persisted in saying that it came from the Holy Spirit, but they had no concept of how that could happen.

Today’s reading rightly says that my understanding must be based on Scripture, yet I know people who know what the Bible says and yet seem unable to obey what they know. This makes me wonder if their knowledge was taught to them by their church rather than a personal revelation by the Spirit. When humans speak, I can believe or not — depending if what I hear suits my fancy, but when the Holy Spirit says it, I know it is true. I may forget and need to hear Him again, yet refuting contrary teaching is not a big challenge when it comes to revealed knowledge.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:3–6)

Spiritual blindness is the norm. Seeing God’s truth is not. It must be revealed lest it swish over our heads. This is the reason that Bible reading and study are important, but even then, if I rely on my own abilities to interpret and understand without God revealing His meaning to me, then I’m in the same boat as those who are unable to see the Light.

PRAY: Jesus, I know that You were often misunderstood and Your identity was deemed a lie. I’m thankful and in awe that the day You came into my life, You opened my eyes to see that You are God in human flesh. It makes no sense to human thinking and is often called error and yet, spiritual revelation once seen is so powerful that nothing can rob me of that Light You have shone in my heart.

Doubt and revelations

“I will have to see it before I believe it.”

Every person has said that about something. I said it when my husband retired. I know him well. He put in his retirement weeks ago and he is still working full time.

Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples, said the same words two thousand years ago about an event far more earth shattering. The other disciples told him that Jesus had risen from the dead . . . 

But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” (John 20:25–27)

While tone of voice is missing, I’m fairly certain Jesus’ words were spoken in kindness, not with a scolding tone. He knew the incredulous nature of this event, but He also knew the nature of humanity. We are born with questions. Even the eyes of a small child who cannot speak are filled with wonder, and among that child’s first words is “Why?”

Doubt begins here too. As we grow, we learn certain things are true and when something invades that knowledge, a battle begins in the mind. Will the new thought replace the old? Or will old patterns of thinking and acceptance win over the new?

Besides this inner challenge, the world is filled with external challenges to our belief system. On all sides are temptations to questioning. In a positive sense, this is valuable for discovery and progress. For instance, in every flower petal and every cell of every flower petal, there are a hundred things to discover. Scientists might spend years investigating the petal and years more investigating what they discovered in the petal. It seems that God planned His world to stir our curiosity and intellectual activity.

However, the way we investigate truth in the realm of the spirit does not work like that. We could blame prejudice, heredity, or presuppositions, which do play a part, yet the Bible says sin has blinded our eyes and deadened our ears. Surprisingly, an even bigger issue is that God did not design our minds to discover truth about Him through scientific investigation and reason. He designed us to know Him through His revelation of Himself, just like we get to know anyone else.

There is a problem with this. God freely reveals, but our brains cannot freely receive. Sin, prejudice and so on block it and we cannot see without two things: rewired brains and an interpreter, the Holy Spirit who does both. Without the Spirit, even those with rewired minds realize that is not enough. We cannot see or understand matters of the spiritual realm without the help of God to overcome our inadequacies.

Not only that, spiritual truth is doubtable. Reason cannot prove God exists, nor that the Bible is His Word to us. Even if granted faith to believe these basics, our understanding of God is colored by our human experience. We think He is like our human fathers, for example.

For all of this, it was the choice of God to reveal Himself. He did that in the events and lives described in the Bible, but even with that amazing account, without His power to open my blind eyes and invade my wrestling mind, I could not see or know God from reading the Bible on my own. I did that for nearly twenty years and remained clueless.

I now understand that God’s ways are not my ways. I’m not thrown for a loop by the contradiction of new thoughts with old beliefs. That battle still happens, but I’ve learned to investigate rather then toss out new things. God tells me that this is a wise way to deal with this . . .  

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. (Acts 17:11)

However, even as a believer in Jesus Christ and in the Bible, doubt and lies are a continual threat to my faith. I understand Thomas who wanted to see Jesus before believing. Do I not have that same mind when I pray for many years without seeing an answer? Doubt creeps in when life does not go as I hope, or as my prayers request. I battle the lies of the enemy who knows all my weak spots. I seek truth daily from God and know how far I would fall without Him.

Needing God to reveal truth is a humbling thing, particularly to those who think their minds work well. Not only that, I’m humbled to realize that those wrestling matches would never happen if I could simply believe God. However, these realities in my spiritual life gives me greater sympathy and toleration for those who seek truth on other paths and for those who do not accept God’s revelations that are now part of my life. All of this makes me realize that we are sinners together and we need to help and encourage one another.

Helpless without the Holy Spirit

Children do not know how to budget, drive a car or get and keep a job. Such knowledge and skill may come later, but at three or four years old, money, transportation and employment are not even in a child’s frame of reference. Children need time and experience before they know the realities of adult life.
 

In the spiritual realm, those who do not have the Spirit of God are unable to know certain realities either. This is not about experience or education but the need of an addition to their lives. As Scripture says, the truths of God are hidden to the human mind. Time and experience will not reveal them; only the Spirit of God can do that. 

Paul wrote to the church at Corinth about this reality. He first shared that he could not even tell them the truths God had revealed to him unless God helped him do it.

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

Then he went on even farther, saying that no one even understands this revelation of hidden wisdom without the Spirit of God being involved.

None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Paul continues. He says that those who know Jesus have been given the Spirit of God. This is how a Christian “knows” the truths of God. This is not about intelligence or study or anything we can do apart from His work in our lives.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:3–14)

As he says, we are like children, helpless and ignorant of spiritual truth apart from the Spirit who reveals it. Besides revealing truth, He also interprets it for us, and makes it part of our understanding. This affects how we live and talk because as truth becomes obvious, it is also believed. This is why faith is vital to being a Christian.

One of those revealed truths involves the grand plan of God for the salvation of the world. When He makes this clear and plain to a receptive and believing heart, then that person has the ability to see what he formerly rejected and even tell others what he once did not understand or believe.

And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. (1 John 4:14)

John wrote this to Christians. We can see, understand, and give verbal witness to the reality of God the Father sending God the Son to save the world from sin. This is a reality revealed by the Holy Spirit. Without this revelation, we would remain like children who have no idea what it means to be an adult, or like the blind who cannot describe color. Without the Spirit, we cannot see Jesus, never mind testify that He is the Savior, the One who has delivered us from sin.

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Lord, there are days when my helplessness to explain who You are and what You have done becomes an overwhelming sorrow. I know that I cannot convince anyone to believe in You. I cannot even convince them of who You are or why You came. Yet knowing You are able to do these things brings renewed hope. As I pray today for my unsaved family members and for unbelieving friends, may Your Spirit go to work in their life, hearts and minds, showing them who Jesus is and granting them faith to believe.

Blindness to unconditional Love

While he may not have intended it, Spurgeon’s morning and evening readings often pack a one-two punch. For this date, he speaks of God’s freely offered love to those who have turned away from God, and of Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit will reveal truth to God’s people when they are ready to hear it. 

I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. (Hosea 14:4)

As the devotional writer says, the key word in this verse is “freely” and the reason God can do this is that all anger against sin and apostasy has been poured out on Christ. Jesus died for the sins of every person. That includes every sin, including the sin of backsliding away from Him. How can He love like this? The Bible says that He loved the world and gave His Son to die for us. Not only that, He continues to love the world because His Son died for our sin and self-centeredness that makes us so incredibly unlovable.

God’s love has no conditions attached, no demands to be better people first. Instead, He says that while we were yet sinners, Jesus died for us (Romans 5:8). We cannot earn His love nor do anything to deserve it. Those who are trying to “stay on the good side of God” have, in a sense, rejected His freely offered love for a position that focuses on their worthiness (which is nonexistent) instead of on His amazing grace.

Some also measure the love of God by their personal comfort and success in life, not realizing that His love isn’t about baubles and short-term trinkets. His love is eternal and about the issues that really matter. He offers us sinners eternal life — freely! He offers His people the power of His Spirit to rise above all that challenges us.

God’s people in the days of Hosea had sinned in turning from Him, yet God called them back and offered healing. In all of their disobedience and unbelief, He still loves them (and us) freely.

Later, Jesus came. He is the love of God personified. His life and death not only demonstrate the love offer made, but He is the offer. What more can God do to demonstrate His love? Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all thing?”

Why do so many insist on creeds and rules and doing things certain ways lest they anger God? Why do so many think that if they are not following the dogma of their religious system they will be lost? Jesus says it is due to blindness in their heart. He told His disciples . . . 

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:12–15)

This is the rub. The human heart is corrupted by sin to the point that it cannot accept or even understand the totality of God’s offer. Even those who follow Jesus can be oblivious to many spiritual realities because they are not ready to hear them. God knows our hearts. He can show anyone truth — when we are ready to hear it.

On my prayer list are dozens of people who have heard the Gospel and know at least the words of John 3:16. They are either not interested or busy trying to deserve the love of God by their religious activities. I’ve learned that even though I have many things I would like to say to them, they cannot bear, sustain, or receive them, at least not now. To their ears, the freely offered love of God is a foggy puzzle, a jumble of words.

These verses remind me that the Holy Spirit guides those who cannot hear (me included) into all truth. I need to speak of the freely offered love of God, but also act in ways that show His love is unconditional and does not have to be earned. However, only the Holy Spirit can drive this reality home by taking what is of Jesus and declaring it to those who need to hear it.

I cannot explain why everyone is not hearing about this freely offered love except that Jesus says some are not ready to hear it. This is love too. Just as we lovingly wait for maturity before we tell our children about many realities of life, God also lovingly waits until we are ready.

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Father, it is with bittersweet emotions that I think of these things. I’m glad that You open hearts and that You know when people are ready to know truth. But I ache and deeply desire that Your freely poured out love means something to so many people who are oblivious to it right now. Give me wisdom. Help me know how and when to share this amazing love with others. Yet I also realize only You can open their eyes and ears and hearts to Your incredible grace.

God owns a threshing machine

While I am not old enough to remember my farming family using threshing machines, we did have one of these monsters rusting away in our yard. Large and covered with wheels and gears, it was respected and considered dangerous. Mother warned that even though it was at rest and no longer working, we could be hurt if we fell inside a threshing machine.

Today’s devotional is about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is a controversial topic in Christian circles and I don’t want to get into all the views about what this means. However, I am certain that when Jesus came into my life, His Spirit came also. This is His promise to all believers. I also know that I cannot live or walk with Jesus apart from the grace and power that the Holy Spirit provides.

Scripture speaks much about life in the Spirit and how God’s people must walk in the Spirit and be filled with the Spirit. I am aware that God generously gives His Spirit to me, but if I sin, I become filled with that instead of Him. Each day I must repent of any sinful attitudes and actions so the Spirit can again fill me and use me.

That makes being Spirit-filled a daily event. Some think this is also a crisis event. That is, there comes a time when a Christian is brought to the end of their own effort. Then the Holy Spirit fills them for service and their life is never the same after that crisis. It is not about having the Spirit but about the Spirit taking charge in a new and fuller way. Those who do not agree with this idea say that all of us wish that God would “zap” us and we didn’t have to fight sin, but this event is not a biblical promise.

Today I notice that all four gospels quote John the Baptist promising that Jesus will fill His people with His Spirit. This is called a baptism, but it is not about water.

I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. (Matthew 3:11–12)

I included verse 12 because it speaks of another work that the Holy Spirit does, a work of separating the wheat from the chaff. In this context, it seems to be mostly about judgment and how God will gather those who believe into His care and send those who do not believe into eternal punishment. However, there is an experience in the lives of God’s people where He works to rid us of the useless chaff in our lives. Does this purifying process have anything to do with this supposed work of Holy Spirit baptism?

John hinted at growing deeper in Christ when he said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30). Paul also spoke of a change of priorities where he lost the sense of what was once important. He said,

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith . . . (Philippians 3:7–9)

Today’s devotional reading also points to this end of self and of what Christians depend on to serve God. It asks if I have ever come to a place in my experience where I can say “not I but Christ”? The author suggests that I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means until I am at an end of my own resources and helpless, unable to do anything.

I’ve been working through a separate Bible study on repentance. God is showing me all sorts of things that are not right in my life. Today’s devotional touches the way this study is affecting me. It says repentance does not bring a sense of sin, but a sense of unutterable unworthiness. While helplessness is necessary for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, this realization of not being worthy even to carry His shoes leaves me feeling as if I am empty, without ambition, even as if I fell into a threshing machine. It is not a glorious thing and makes me want to run and hide. 

Yet even as I say that, the devotional author says this: “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire.” John does not speak of the baptism of the Holy Ghost as an experience (i.e., a new power that I will feel), but as a work performed by Jesus Christ, “He shall baptize you.”

Then he adds, “The only conscious experience those who are baptized with the Holy Ghost ever have is a sense of absolute unworthiness.”

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Lord, I’ve known this sense of “Your power perfected in weakness” that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians. I’ve even taught others that when this happens, we ourselves feel our weakness, but others see Your strength in us. Even with feeling weak, this has been a good experience for me, up to now.

This week it seems that my words only scratched the surface. You are doing something in my life that is bringing that weakness to deeper helplessness. But I, in my flesh, don’t want to be helpless or feel as chaff being winnowed like wheat through a threshing machine. I know that You know what You are doing, and that this is for my good and Your glory, but there is no deep joy in my heart. Instead, I feel heaviness as in a spiritual war. I’m also feeling resistance and anger — and do not want to be unable to stand on my feet.

Some say that this could be about unconfessed sin or simply fatigue, but it seems more as if You are leading me through what some have called “the dark night of the soul” — a time when my longing for You will deepen and my faith is eventually strengthened. In regard to this testing, someone said, “Growing up in the Christian life, just like growing as a human person, is not all fun and games” — reminding me of that warning not to play on a threshing machine. 

(Photo credit)

To Live is Christ — totally dependent

Today’s devotional verse is one that I’ve wrongly interpreted in the past. I thought that it was talking about the mysteries of heaven, but to get that interpretation, I pulled it out of context and failed to look closely enough.

But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9)

While this may be true about heaven that is not the intended focus. I realized this when I looked at the source of this quote. It apparently came from Isaiah 64:4, but when I read that verse carefully, there are some differences. 

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, who acts for the one who waits for Him. (Isaiah 64:4)

Did Paul misquote Isaiah? What is going on here? As I began looking into this, I found this in a commentary . . .  

Men might hear with the outward ear, but they could only by the Spirit “perceive” with the “heart” the spiritual significancy of God’s acts, both those in relation to Israel, primarily referred to (in Isaiah) and those relating to the Gospel secondarily, which Paul refers to (in 1 Corinthians).

This tells me that Paul’s “quote” was not intended to be verbatim. He was quoting an Old Testament truth, not the exact words. He was rephrasing what Isaiah said just as I sometimes say, “In other words. . . .”

With that, I see that both verses are about the inability of the human mind to discern what God is doing unless the Holy Spirit reveals it. My eyes are not good enough to see God in action. My ears are not keen enough to hear His voice. My heart cannot discern what He is doing in my life. For this, the context says,

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. (1 Corinthians 2:10–12)

Just as I cannot know what someone else is thinking unless they tell me, I also cannot know what God is doing unless He tells me. Today, He is telling me that today’s devotional verse is not about heaven; it is about right now. It is about seeing the work of God in my life and the mystery and purpose He has for me. Paul and Isaiah both affirm that apart from the Spirit showing me, I cannot see God at all.

This is a wonderful reality. It is also humbling. I tend to think of myself as reasonably smart and discerning, but He says that without His Spirit, I am blind and ignorant of God and His ways. This means that I not only am unable to see what He is doing in the lives of others and in the rest of the world, but I cannot discern His dealings with me either. I cannot “get it” apart from the Holy Spirit revealing it to me.

When Paul wrote these verses in 1 Corinthians, he was operating under a similar reality concerning revelation from God. The Holy Spirit showed him the significance of this Old Testament truth from Isaiah 64:4 in two ways. It spoke to the blindness of God’s people then, and the blindness of the human heart now.

The difference between what I glean from Scripture and what Paul saw in Isaiah is that Paul was using what the Holy Spirit gave him to write Scripture. (Note that in the following verses, prophecy is not about telling the future. This word simply means telling forth the Word of God.)

And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:19–21)

The Spirit gave Paul the truth from Isaiah that he might share it with others, writing it for generations to come. My role in receiving revelation is to realize that all truth is from God, and I am supposed to heed it — pay attention to it — do what it says. I may not see the results of my obedience, but I am to obey anyway.

In the days ahead, I am certain God will show me more about this verse. Right now, I need to humbly thank Him for freely revealing truth to me. I also must also continue to love and wait on Him.