35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”
37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
Something I just noticed now (and maybe you've all noticed already and I'm the only slow one) but I find it awesomely ironic that God uses the healing of a physically blind man to expose spiritually blind men.
And the man who has first received his physical sight because of Jesus, now receives spiritually sight as well. He receives this sight as a gift of divine origin (God initiated it, Jesus found him), through faith, as he recognizes Jesus is God and, as a result, worships Him.
And what's amazing is that this blind man, stood up for Jesus, stood up for the truth (in yesterday's passage) before he knew who He was! And it cost him everything.
MacArthur (emphasis mine)...
"Boy, does that put most Christians to shame." We who have received the full revelation of who Christ is, who know every single thing about Him, who have received all of His blessings and all of His mercies and all of the things that He could give us, we have totally revelation, we have so-called total commitment to Christ and yet we aren't even willing to make such an uncompromising stand that it would cost us something. And this blind man was when he didn't even know that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. I like him because he doesn't compromise. I like him because he's got some character. He's got some courage. And even though he doesn't understand all of who Christ is, he is willing to pay whatever cost there has to be paid to be fair and to be true to the one who gave him his sight. Boy, there's no place for compromise in the life of a Christian...no place at all for compromise with the world. How can I expect God to honor me if I dishonor Him?
Spiritual blindness, on the other hand, results in judgment, refuses to admit that it is blind, and so refuses the sight that is offered, and results in doom.
There's only two choices.
Are we willing, not only to be people who see spiritually, but who are courageous enough to make an uncompromising stand for the one we say we believe in?
Tomorrow's scripture focus: John 10:1-21
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