Degrees of Blindness?

 

Today’s devotional tells of a missionary on a ship during a dark night. He woke up to the frantic cry of “Man overboard!” He rose from bed, grabbed a portable lamp beside it, and held it at the cabin window. He couldn’t see anything but was told the next morning that the light from that lamp was enough for those on deck to see the missing man and rescue him.

Two thoughts come to mind. One is that old song, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.” No Christian knows what God can do with even our smallest actions.

Second, illumination from God often comes through small actions. Someone says something kind or thoughtful. A sermon includes a verse I needed to hear. Someone presents a gift without realizing I’d been praying for that very thing. I’m tired and a parking place empties close to where I’m going.

Mostly, God uses His Word to shed light on my attitudes. His light is often surprising. Others may not notice, but He knows when I need light to get out of a shadow.

He says I am part of “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that I may proclaim the excellencies of him who called me out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

God’s illumination grants the ability to understand truth and live by it. Darkness in the natural realm is debilitating. In the spiritual realm, it is even more devastating as it describes living in unbelief and sin and not having a clue what is happening.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. (1 John 1:5–6)

This passage is often used to discern between Christians and unbelievers who are blind to the light of Christ’s glorious gospel. Yet note John uses “we” giving the sense that some who walk in darkness know enough to say they are in fellowship with God, even though they are lying about it. Jesus said of such people, "They love darkness and reject light because they don’t want their evil deeds to be exposed.” (John 3:19–20)  1 John suggests even believers can know we should acknowledge and confess our sin, but pride keeps it from happening.

The darkest blindness is this: “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.” (2 Corinthians 4:4) However, rejecting light is not the same as being so blind that there is no realization that light exists.

Bottom line: John writes to Christians telling us not to turn from the light, never to fake it, to act as if I am in fellowship and walking with Jesus but am hanging on to some sin, saying it is not there, or refusing to confess it. Lest someone says that is not possible, ask me how I know! Hypocrisy and back-sliding does exist in the family of God.

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (1 John 1:6–2:6)

Blindness may be a lack of salvation, but it can also be disobedience, a temporary deception, pride, failure to read the Word, ignorance or immaturity. In any case, the answer is in this passage. Stop lying, making excuses, and confess all sin to Jesus who is our advocate and the One who paid the penalty for it.

PRAY: Darkness is confusing and dangerous. Jesus, I need light from You every day. I cannot turn it on by myself, but I can respond to it. You save me from sin and enable me to walk in the light. What a joy that You give truth and understanding, a privilege and grace I cannot earn and do not deserve.

PONDER: 1 John describes what walking in light looks like. Read it often and let Jesus shed His light on any dark places and shadows He finds in me.

 

 

 

Post-Christianity is . . .

 

A video banned from social media asks a simple question, “What is a woman?” and the answers so far, particularly from those who are doctors, psychiatrists, university professors and so on, are not answers. Most of them try to explain the current ideas about gender and sexuality but their worldview eliminates this definition because worldviews have radically changed, even since the devotional I am reading was published.

Worldviews affect how Christianity is defined. Currently, people are not using honorable deeds so they look like Christians or to earn their way to heaven. Good is relative and heaven does not exist. Reality is not defined objectively. If a person believes something, then that something is true for them, even if they think they are a turtle or a sheepdog.

My mother often said that nice people must be Christians. Her way of evaluation may have been based on Scripture like this:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–17)

That way of defining Christians needs to include more than being nice. Faith must be in the equation because without it, no one can please God (Hebrews 11:6). Faith is about trusting Him, not our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5ff) and biblical faith is  the source of doing good. This means good works are not initiated by human effort but by the Lord through a changed life, a life that follows God’s leading and obeys Him.

Dead faith is contrary to that. No one can produce the work that God wants because godly goodness depends on Holy Spirit power. Dead faith is self-motivated and for personal gain. In contrast, Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

The Christian way of thinking is limited in today’s world by current philosophies and definitions of reality. Many people think there is no God (atheism) or that God (if there is a God) is not involved in this world. The concern to please God is replaced by whatever pleases self, and faith is replaced by “truth is relative” which negates objectivity and renders the Bible obsolete and passages like this one:

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. (Romans 2:6–8)

Christianity is thought to be repressive — and it is — because it considers sin as bondage, and relying on self and doing our own thing is sin. It tells us to put off that kind of life. From a Christian perspective, the current world view is no different than it was when Christ lived, died, and rose again, except for its extent and for the damage that is done by those who decide what is true for themselves. People no longer want to be rid of sin, but to have it declared okay, even good. This thinking was predicted by this warning: “Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.” (2 Peter 3:3) It began with rules concerning marriage and food . . .

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth . . . . (1 Timothy 4:1–5)

It continues by turning away from biblical teaching:

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3–4)

It comes down to what I’m hearing from the so-called wise of this world: “ . . . Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.” (1 Timothy 6:20–21)

PRAY: Lord, only You can open blind eyes and change hearts. Only You can change those “insatiable for sin” into those who are hungry for truth and to know You. You say, “Do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart . . .” (1 Corinthians 4:5). In the meantime, people will “suffer wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing” and people will “count it pleasure to revel in the daytime” and continue to “devote themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” — unless You speak to their hearts. My challenge is to manifest truth with faith that produced a goodness that can be explained by ‘only God.’ Enable me to be totally obedient to You.

PONDER: John 15:1–8. What is my need concerning this slide of many into unbelief? What can I do to make a difference?