Author: kezha1

Most Jews of that day were very familiar with an old Proverb that essentially said, “The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” In the Book of Job he restated the Proverb this way, “God stores up a man’s punishment for his sons…” It was assumed then that every temporal misfortune was God’s punishment for a specific sin…and in the case here, his blindness was caused by either the sins of the parents or the blind man himself. And so this is why the disciples saw the man’s blindness had only two possibilities of why it happened…but Jesus offered to them an astonishing third option they had never thought of. It was instead, the divinely ordained spectacular miracle of sight for this man, and for everyone watching, the visible manifestation of God’s glory through the healing hands of Christ.

It tells us here that we have been called out of darkness…but it’s our choice whether we do or not. And that’s where the real struggle begins…the battle between light & darkness, faith & unbelief, good & evil. John 3:19 tells us that, “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” We reject Jesus because His light exposes our sinful ways…and we don’t like that. If we read Ezekiel 8:1-18 we can see how darkness had permeated Jerusalem…from very public to very secretive idolatry within the Temple walls itself…all of the people thinking God couldn’t see them or their evil deeds…but that was far from the truth, “For God Who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness.’ Made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (II Corinthians 4:6) The truth of His light is shining like a high powered beacon, directed at our stubborn hearts…but the choice still remains ours to cross over from darkness to light.

In this letter of Paul’s, he was giving Titus instructions on the proper order and conduct of Believers within the Church. But these Scriptures go way beyond the four walls of any Church building. If you profess yourself a Christian, people are watching you. Watching your every action and word… every off-hand remark and callous action. For if you call yourself a Christian, you have become an ambassador for Christ…an example for all to see of just who Jesus is. But when our conduct, character, and discretion is far from what God desires of us, we injure God’s reputation, malign His Name, but more importantly, drag the Gospel through the mud.

Most of us think that God is too busy to be interested in the things that happen to us. That we are far too insignificant to matter to Him…our troubles unimportant to the God of the universe…our distress inconsequential in the sight of all the pain and suffering in the world. But this Scripture shows us it’s all false thinking on our part. The Lord is near to those who put their faith and trust in Him, that He delights in His favor towards those who fear Him, and that God truly does listen and answer when we cry out to Him. A excellent example of this is Psalm 18:6,16,&19, “In my distress I called to the Lord, He heard my voice…my cry came before Him. He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of the deep waters. He rescued me because He delighted in me.”

The Lord is open-handed and generous towards us…only desiring to satisfy our needs with His kind provision. He assures us that He will never abandon us…and at just the right time He will supply our desires. But this is where the sticking point comes…His timing apposed to when we think things need to happen. That’s when our impatience and worry take over rather than waiting with hope. God cares for us at just the right time…not too early…not too late…His timing is always perfect. Besides, anxious worry changes nothing. Jesus summed it up well when He said in Matthew 6:26, “Look at the birds of the air; they don’t sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

This verse essentially tells us that the Lord is compassionate towards the weak and restores the erring. The fixed expression for poverty in the Old Testament was, poor and needy, but figuratively poor and needy was also used to express total dependance on God. Throughout the Bible we can see that God gives special attention to the cries of the oppressed…strengthening, sustaining, and protecting them as I Samuel 2:8 says, “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.” But the Lord is just as compassionate to those who are going down the wrong path, those bowed down with the weight of sin in their life. The Lord wants to lift those burdens and restore us back to a right standing with Him.

Deuteronomy 7:9 tells us about God’s reliability, ” Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands.” When it comes to God’s covenantal promises, they are trustworthy, believable, and enduring. But our knowledge of this can never just be “head knowledge”… we must allow it to become “heart knowledge…pervading and shaping every aspect of our life. Or as Joshua 23:14 says, “You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.”

The communal thanksgiving and singing praises to the Lord may start in the Church…but it can’t stop at the perimeter of the its walls. It says here, “So that all men know of Your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of Your Kingdom.” The Church thus must leave the building and go out into the highways and byways telling all about God’s wonderful deeds…for how will they know if they’ve not been told? And how will the world be changed for the better if no one makes known to them the Lord’s sovereignty, strength, and power to deliver souls from hell?

When was the last time you stopped and really meditated on Who God is and what He has done in your life? To sit in quiet reflection…going over in your mind divine things…things that are beyond the bounds of human power or even expectations. It’s then that we can join in with Psalm 148:13 when it proclaims, “Let them praise the Name of the Lord, for His Name alone is exalted; His splendor is above the earth and the heavens.” But the verses here in Psalm 145 want us to take it a step farther by telling others about God’s glory, majesty, and power. We are to tell of His wonderful deeds, not hiding them from our children…but telling the next generation. (Psalm 75:1 & Psalm 78:4)

Passing on God’s Word to the next generation is far more important than we can conceive. At the end of the Book of Joshua all the elders of Israel and Joshua himself were dying. But unlike Moses who discipled Joshua, they had failed to mentor their successors…and as a result, the next generation succumbed to Canaanite idolatry. From this story we need to be mindful that as God’s people, we are only one generation away from renouncing God. This is why passing on and entrusting God’s Word to the succeeding generation is so vital. So how do we do this? Deuteronomy 11:19 shows us that sharing God’s Word needs to be deeply ingrained in our everyday activities and as natural as breathing. It tells us to teach His Word…explaining to them when we sit, when we walk together, when we lie down, and when we get back up. In other words, we need to be constantly commending God’s works and the Gospel Message to future generations.