Who do you think Jesus is? How we respond to that question should impact every aspect of our life.
John 9
This story tells us two things about Jesus and who he is:
- Jesus is already working
- Before the miracle Jesus is already teaching and he turns the disciples’ question on its head, from causes to purposes. The real question he’s highlighting is where is God in this, where is God taking this situation?
- Romans 8:28
- This should be a comfort to us, to know that Jesus is already working, he’s already at work in our pain and difficulties, the miracle hasn’t happened yet but Jesus is saying there’s already purpose here.
- We have to transform our thinking from a man focused, cause centred and eyes down mindset. To God driven, purpose centred and eyes up mindset. Jesus is already at work and there’s already a purpose.
- But how do we get there? We have to value God above everything else, each day we have to reprioritise God and make him number 1 in our life. It’ll transform our minds and we’ll see purpose during the darker times.
- Psalm 63:3, we need to believe that God’s comfort is better than life and know that Jesus is still at work.
- Jesus reveals blindness
- Healing blindness is the most common miracle in the gospels, so this is clearly deeper than just the physical healing and we see this in the two journeys in the story, of the Pharisees and of the man.
- The Pharisees have seen the miracles but they were still blind, they think they know what’s going on and that’s what makes them blind.
- In contrast is the blind man’s journey of faith, he first calls Jesus the man, then the prophet, then he defends Jesus and then at the end he worships him.
- After the miracle Jesus brings a teaching about blindness v38-41. Jesus came to bring sight to a world of blind people and to reveal the blindness we all have. And we all have that same testimony, no matter our story to faith, we can all say Christ took us from a point of blindness, where we had no purpose to where we are now, where we can see and we have purpose. We can all say, I was blind but now I can see.
- And the Pharisees couldn’t dispute that in the story and it’s the same for us, people can’t deny our personal testimony.
One other important area to look at is the parents of the blind man, they’re not on the side of the Pharisees nor boldly acknowledging Jesus like their son, they’re fearful and most of us are probably closer to the parents, which is a dangerous place to be. John 12:42
We live in a world that encourages us to seek the glory of man more than the costly life of following Jesus. We want to please, be accepted and loved by people, when really we should want to please, be accepted and be loved by God above all else.
Let’s stop sitting on the fence, let’s make a choice to say no to fear and no to wanting the glory of man, instead seek the glory that comes from following God’s way.
Who do you think Jesus is? And what are you going to do about it?