Month: February 2023

The Jewish exiles felt like the dead & buried…their bones dried up like those in the Valley of Dry Bones where Ezekiel had just witnessed the miraculous regeneration by God’s Will & authority. In their hopelessness & helplessness God promises that He will restore, renew, and revitalize…a tangible testament to His power & rule over the world. As a Christian today, do you feel spiritually dry & dead? Are you just going through the motions as a Believer, but without the fire & hope of your first love? “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.” (James 4:10) Come before Him with humility, repentance, submission, and contrition…and God promises He will restore you.

Hundreds of sheep find Summer pasture high in the mountains of Idaho & Wyoming, but come October, they start the slow migration to Southern Utah where the flocks spend the Winter. Where we lived in South-Eastern Idaho was the migratory path for many flocks to travel south down through the back roads. I found it fascinating the first time I came upon a huge flock of 300-400 sheep resting in a hay field for the night. The boundary was a temporary single stretch of electric fencing with only one opening. Inside in pen were 2 Great Pyrenes dogs standing guard, the shepherd and his wagon, and a portable water tank & troughs for the sheep to drink. But what I marveled at the most, was how incredibly calm the flock was inside this makeshift sheep-pen. I really wanted to chat with the shepherd, but not surprisingly at all, the dogs refused to let me enter. In these verses, Jesus is warning us about those who scale the fence of the sheep-pen in foul play…false teachers who use deception, both openly & in secret, to steal us away from the truth. That’s because there’s only one gate…and The Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, is the only One who can enter by that way.

As the story of the man born blind develops, we watch as his journey of faith moves forward. It starts with him simply obeying Jesus’ command to, “Go and wash.” and ends in him being able to see clearly enough to, for the first time in his life, walk home by himself. Though he referred to Him as, “The man they call Jesus.” he chose to trust Him. Later, as the Pharisees interrogated him, he called Jesus a Prophet, drawing from his Hebrew knowledge from Deuteronomy 18:15 and acknowledging that this man was indeed special. Finally during his 2nd interrogation with the Pharisees the man had heard enough of their slanderous accusations about the man who had healed him & instead he schooled them. “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see! We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does His Will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.” After the man had been thrown out of the Temple, Jesus found him and this man’s faith went from general confidence to joyful acceptance of Jesus as his personal Savior. It best summed up when he professed, “Lord, I believe.”

No matter if our stress comes from internal or external sources, we can become overwhelmed by anxious hearts & thoughts to the point that it literally rules our life. But what good is it? Worrying is like getting on a treadmill and walking for 5 miles, but in the end, you’ve got a pounding heart & racing mind but you’ve gone nowhere. We are thus reminded in Psalm 73:26 that, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” That’s right, God & His Word are not only your strength, but the only solution to overwhelming anxiety & worry. We are to “Trust in the Lord with all our heart” …the fruit of that being God’s Presence, protection & peace.

The great Theologian Charles Spurgeon once penned, “Great tribulation brings out the great strength of God.” But we don’t like to confess that we are indeed weak. That’s because in today’s world, weakness is looked upon with distain, but Paul reminds us in verse 10 of this Chapter that, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” In other words, our weaknesses can become a reason to rejoice, for we see Christ’s power at work in our life. And when suffering abounds, comfort from God abounds more…and in the midst of all our struggles, there can be the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7)…our weakness driving us to seek Christ. And thus as we rely on Christ’s power & follow His example, we can face all circumstances that come into our life. For the grace of God can accomplish His plan & purpose despite any of our weaknesses… endowing us with strength & encouragement.

The blind man’s parents feared being put out of the synagogue or excommunicated. Now the Pharisees regularly using this form of tactical intimidation to silence the people into compliance. So even if they had witnessed this miracle for themselves, they weren’t going to admit to it…too afraid that the Pharisees would pronounce one of the 3 degrees of banishment over them. The 1st degree was a rebuke declared over the offender for up to 30 days. While it didn’t necessarily mean exclusion from attending & participating in Synagogue worship… it did exclude them from all fellowship with the Congregation. A 2nd degree of banishment would stack on 30 more days onto the expulsion. Finally, the 3rd degree, and most severe form of excommunication, was a life-time ban from the Temple, loss of all civil & religious rights as a Jew, and the person would be considered dead by the congregation.

God doesn’t deny our weaknesses, nor does He remove adversity from our lives. He instead tells us not to fear. For fear is not a necessary action and only causes torment. Fear is also sinful & dishonoring to God…for it implies that we are doubting God’s love, faithfulness, and power. His all-sufficient promise of, “I will help you” should be all the assurance we need. Or as Isaiah goes on to write, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”

A parable is a narrative that compares spiritual things with natural things…making a deep impression on the attentive heart, while simultaneously concealing it from the worldly listener. Jesus used parables almost exclusively to explain spiritual truths, but for those who had already rejected Him, it was all utter foolishness & nonsense. Yet when Jesus & His disciples were off on their own, He would privately make clear & expound on what He had just taught the crowds…enabling His disciples to truly understand with enlightened minds. The Bible isn’t a book of darkness but rather the source of all light & truth, and it’s the Holy Spirit that illuminates the Scriptures for our benefit. The Holy Spirit helps us to hear, receive, and properly understand the true message of God’s Word as we read it…just as Jesus intimately did for His own.

Why should we desire to praise God? The answer is, it takes our eyes off the world & all its carnal thoughts and places them on Him instead. This particular Psalm speaks of those wandering in the wilderness…the stark, bleak, wasteland we can find ourselves in when we stray. But straying doesn’t have to mean blatant rebellion…it can simply mean allowing our emotions to control our life rather than God. For when we permit fear, anxiety, & worry to rule, our eyes are off the Lord, our songs of praise are silent, and we feel as if we’re wandering alone…which if you think about it, is true. But just as this Psalm proclaims, we need to be praising God & thanking Him in the middle of our adversity…grateful for His goodness, kindness, & mercy…for He wants to help. Or as Deuteronomy 32:10 says, “In a desert land He found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; He guarded him as the apple of His eye.”

This blind man had become a permanent fixture as hundreds of people past by him daily…his presence & poverty just a momentary observation as they hurried by. But then suddenly, here was this same man healed & able to see clearly, and the people couldn’t believe their own eyes. The Ministry of Jesus was one of Restoration & Renewal…or as Isaiah 35:5-6 foretold, the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy. This once blind man best summed it up for all the doubters when he exclaimed, “I am the man that was once blind, but now I can see.”