Read 2 Kings 17, Nahum 3, and John 9.
This devotional is about John 9.
It is hard to imagine not being able to see. If someone is born with sight but loses his vision, that’s going to make life very challenging. Imagine, though, never having seen anything. It would be difficult to live that way and even to communicate because so much of what we know we apprehend with our eyes.
Here in John 9, Jesus healed a man born blind–an incredible act of kindness and grace. Before healing the man’s vision, Jesus told the disciples that the blind man’s lack of sight was “..so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (v. 3).
The miracle was undeniable because everyone knew the man had been blind his entire life (vv. 1-2, 18-21). Yet the man’s neighbors had trouble believing the miracle (vv. 8-9) and the Pharisees refused to accept the miracle (vv. 13-34).
Like all miracles Jesus did, this one was designed to authenticate Jesus as the Messiah (vv. 22, 30-33). But it also was designed to show the pervasiveness of spiritual blindness. In verse 5 Jesus said, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” and in verse 39 Jesus said, “Jesus said, ‘For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.'” This statement says that Jesus’ work on this earth was to remove spiritual blindness as we see in the phrase,. “…so that the blind will see.” Jesus work also was to make people blind spiritually who could see physically. That’s what verse 39 means when it says, “…so that… those who see will become blind.”
The Pharisees–and many others–saw with their eyes everything they needed to see to know that Jesus was the Messiah. But they were guilty of sin, as verse 41 says, because the claimed to see spiritually yet refused to believe in Jesus and worship him like the man born blind did in verses 37-38.
And so it is with everyone in the world who hears the gospel message and sees it transform the lives of sinners without coming to faith in Christ. We are all spiritually blind when we start this life. Only the power of Christ can remove our spiritually blindness so that we can see Jesus for who he is and believe in him for eternal life.
Just as Jesus made this man see physically, he also has the power to remove spiritual blindness and save sinners. So pray for the people who know who are unsaved. Ask God to open their eyes to the light of Christ as you share with them the saving message of Jesus Christ.
And, give thanks to God for the gift of grace that removed your spiritual blindness and caused you to come in faith to Christ.