Can I pray for you in any way?
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.
In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of
The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
They came to Bethsaida,
and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the
blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When He had spit on the
man’s eyes and put His hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”
He looked up and said,
“I see people; they look like trees walking around.”
Once more Jesus put His
hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and
he saw everything clearly.
Jesus sent him home,
saying, “Don’t even go into the village.”
Mark 8:22-26
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
“Read the first line you can see.”
This was the request of my optometrist as I
was in for an eye exam.
You see, I had been having more and more
difficulty reading the small print in my Bible and when it reached a point
where I couldn’t see the words clearly at all then it was time to take some
action to remove that impediment. I was not going to allow myself to be in a
place where I could not read and study the scriptures.
And so I went to get checked out and as I
sat in the chair, the optometrist put a contraption up to my eyes and gave the
aforementioned command:
“Read the first line you can see.”
Well, at that point, I couldn’t read any of
the lines as the lenses I looked through within the contraption left everything
a blur. That changed when the doctor moved a dial and changed the lens I was
looking through. As he advanced the dial, I started to be able to see things
clearer. Things began to come into focus to a place where I was able to see, at
least partially anyways. A few more dial advances and everything ahead of me
was readable, an indicator that the optometrist had found the correct lenses to
place within the framework of my glasses, lenses that would restore my sight
and allow me to once again read God’s word undeterred.
As we look at today’s passage from the
Gospel of Mark, we find Jesus coming upon a man who didn’t just have a slight
seeing deficiency. Rather, the man was blind. He could see nothing thus it was
no surprise that he yearned for a miracle and a miracle worker to deliver it.
Look again at these verses:
They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged
Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the
village. When He had spit on the man’s eyes and put His hands on him, Jesus asked,
“Do you see anything?”
He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking
around.”
Once more Jesus put His hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were
opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into the village.” Mark 8:22-26
The scriptures tell us that Jesus and His
disciples had entered the village of Bethsaida which was located on the
northern shores of the Sea of Galilee. Knowing the great and wondrous works of
healing Jesus had done in other places, we read where some people brought a
blind man to Him, begging that he be touched. In response to the petition, Jesus
“took the blind man by the hand” and “led him outside the village.” We’re not
told why Jesus did this but it really isn’t all that important. What was
important was what happened next.
For the once blind man was about to find
things beginning to come into focus for the first time in awhile and the catalyst
for this change of course was Jesus.
God’s word tells us Jesus spit on the man’s
eyes and then put His hands on Him before asking the blind man:
“Do you see anything?”
Amazingly, the man could
see something. Progress had been made but there was still more left to do for
the man tells Jesus:
“I see people; they look like trees walking around.”
Things were beginning to
come into focus, much like my looking through the optometrist’s contraption,
but the man from Bethsaida wasn’t quite there yet.
More focus was needed
and Jesus was ready to give the man just that.
For the scriptures tell
us that He once again put His hands on the man’s eyes and when He did, the man’s
eyes were fully opened and his sight was restored. He now saw everything plainly
and all things before him had now come into complete focus and clarity.
Can you imagine how this
must have impacted the man? On the people who brought him to Jesus? On the
disciples who were present?
They had to be left
awestruck and amazed, a common reaction when people were around Jesus because
He always seemed to make the impossible possible and improbable probable.
Indeed, Jesus will
deliver lucidity to anyone who seeks understanding and wisdom from Him or the
Father who sent Him.
You see, so many people are spiritually
blind. Like the sightless man, they have no vision of the word of God and the
Savior of Jesus it speaks of. The hope is that these people will eventually
start to come to the Lord and begin to receive spiritual sight, even if things
aren’t quite in focus at first. As He did in this scripture passage, Jesus can
bring things into full view incrementally, bringing sight in steps until
spiritual vision is perfect.
And He does it through amazing grace. Thus
it’s little wonder that the writer of the hymn which bears that title would pen
these lyrics:
Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
T'was blind but now I see.
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
T'was blind but now I see.
If you’re counted among the spiritually
blind or even are spiritually vision impaired today, won’t you, like the blind
man from Bethsaida, turn to Jesus and allow Him to bring everything into focus
in a way no one else can.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment