About Me

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I am a born-again Christian, who is Reformed, but also charismatic, spiritually speaking. (I do not speak in tongues, but I believe glossalalia is a bona fide gift not given to all, and not as great as prophecy, for example.) I have several years of college education but only completed a two-year degree. I was raised Lutheran and confirmed, but I didn't "find Christ" until I was in the Army and responded to a Billy Graham crusade in 1973. I was mentored or discipled by the Navigators in the army and upon discharge joined several evangelical, Bible-teaching churches. I was baptized as an infant, but believe in believer baptism, of which I was a partaker after my conversion experience. I believe in the "5 Onlys" of the reformation: sola fide (faith alone); sola Scriptura (Scripture alone); soli Christo (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), and soli Deo gloria (to God alone be the glory). I affirm TULIP as defended in the Reformation.. I affirm most of The Westminster Confession of Faith, especially pertaining to Providence.
Showing posts with label spiritual blindness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spiritual blindness. Show all posts

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Admitting Our Spiritual Blindness...

"The true Light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world" (John 1:9, HCSB).  
"Jesus said, I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind" (John 8:39, HCSB).  

Like the blind man admitting he couldn't see clearly, we must also come clean and confess our inadequacies, sins, weaknesses, shortcomings, or in short, our sin (calling a spade a spade) to God, and not be engaged in a coverup, hypocrisy, facade, or masquerade.  Why?  "Be sure your sin will find you out" (cf. Num 32:23, KJV).  "You have set our unjust ways before your secret sins in the light of Your presence" (Psalm 90:8,, HCSB).  The primary condition of salvation also is to admit our disqualification for it--that we are wholly blind to spiritual truth without Christ in our lives.  We will never know we are blind until we try to see the light or seek sight!

Light itself doesn't heal blindness, but Christ is the Light who can.  Even believers can have spiritual myopia and not see things the way they should through the lens of the Spirit--having a Christian worldview--having mind and thinking renewed--the lense of our interpretive framework.  The point of healing is to admit we need it, and just like when Jesus healed the blind man when he saw "men as trees walking"; oh, how different his life would've been without this straightforward confession!

He didn't try to see, but had faith he could! I know Jesus had quite a reputation for healing the sick but it still was an act of faith to come to Him for it.  We must go to the Lord.  So, salvation is not trying but trusting, and its the object of our faith that matters for it to be genuine.  Faith doesn't heal or save, Christ does!  Blindness isn't just physical but spiritual--we all are that way without Jesus.  We may not know when we began to see or how we see, just that we do!  We must be like the blind man who said, "All I know is that I was blind, but now I see!" But God is interested in more than physical sight!  Then our testimony cannot be denied or refuted by scholars!  Once the light is in us and we see we have spiritual discernment and our outlook changes and it can have dramatic and radical changes in our lives and testimonies.

We all need to see men as they are in reality, as sinners and God can open our eyes to see the Big Picture with Him in the equation to be oriented to the real world or Reality 101.  The world has too high a regard for man, that he is the measure of all things, that man must be deified and God dethroned, and what they really mean is "glory to man in the highest," not to God alone be the glory--Soli Deo Gloria!  God alone deserves the glory and worship for He alone is worthy, for worship means "worth-ship."

If ever we get healed (and we must want to be healed!), and we will if we believe, we must give God the ultimate and final glory--He only uses men as His instruments and vessels of honor!  But note that spiritual healing is what is promised, not necessarily physical healing with salvation. Then we can overcome our lack of intuition or insight into God's will by following Jesus, which is the essence of ethics (orthopraxy or right conduct).  When our eyes are opened, we can then see God at work and that: when God needs to lend a helping hand He uses ours when He wants to love someone He uses our hearts when He wants to listen to a person in time of need when God listens, He uses our ears!  God is in the business of using us as vessels of honor to accomplish His will and glory.

So how is God moving in our life?  We can only know if we see and our eyes have been opened by grace and when our spirits have been quickened.  "God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform!"  Now, no one sees perfectly in time but we all can use spiritual enlightenment from the Word of God, especially its preaching to illuminate us. Our blessed hope is the beatific vision or the full measure of seeing God as He is with our eyes having full restoration in glory.

CAVEAT:  WE MUST ADMIT OUR BLINDNESS TO SEE, AS JESUS TOLD THE PHARISEES THAT BECAUSE THEY SAY THEY CAN SEE, THEY ARE BLIND:  "'If you were blind,'  Jesus told them, you wouldn't have sin  But now that you say, 'We see'--your sin remains" (John 9:41, HCSB).   In sum, we could say that if we don't come clean we may remain in our sin and not be rescued, for salvation is a form of rescue or deliverance from slavery and blindness.      Soli Deo Gloria!