01-20-16
Let me preface this by saying that I love you. I don’t even
love you as well as God loves you, or Christ who died for you, but I CAN write
this because I love you as best that I can, for a human.
I look around me at the pain and brokenness caused by bad
decisions and the human in me just wants to shake you and ask you, ‘what the
heck are you thinking.’ But last night as I tried to set aside my humanness and
be as Christ would be, it dawned on me… I would rather spit in your eye.
What if all it took to save each lost soul is to spit in
their eye? What if someone who understands and believes could spit in some mud
and rub it on the lost person’s eyes to make them see?
John 9:3-7: Jesus
answered, “It was not that
this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed
in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day;
night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in
the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spit on the
ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the
mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam”
(which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
Though not a popular way to explain it, I see what Jesus did
to heal the blind by spitting in the mud, like this: We are of the world. The
earth we stand on is the world. The air we breathe, as well as the dirt we were
made of, is of the earth. I imagine the spit and mud would act as a way to
blind the person, much like the lost are now. They are lost in the world and
the ignorance of its ways and don’t even SEE it. We are so entrenched in the
world; the same world that satan rules over.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4: 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is
veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world
has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of
the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
We are ‘blinded,’ if you will, by all of the ignorance,
hype, commercialism, sexism, vanity, and justification of sin that the world
continues to exude. You only need to look around you to see it. What we say,
how we act outside of church, how we think and feel about each other and the
world, how we behave when people aren’t watching, how we talk to each other,
how we talk to and treat our kids… and that is just the tip of it. I haven’t
even started on ‘normal’ business ‘practices, where we find ‘entertainment’ and
how we like to ‘blow off steam. We don’t even know how to communicate with love
and respect… in fact, we sometimes don’t even bother to communicate at all…but
of course, WE say that it has to be deserved. Good thing that Christ didn’t
feel that way when he died for us.
1 Corinthians 13: 1-7: If I speak in the
tongues[a] of men or of angels,
but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can
fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move
mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and
give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love,
I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love
is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not
self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but
rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects,
always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.We see a lot of lost people who think they are found but continue to practice sin and lawlessness as if they are magically covered by just saying that they believe. My heart hurts for their ignorance. It isn’t enough to just say the words and walk away. They will be sadly mistaken when they hear Jesus say that He didn’t know them.
Matthew 7:21-23: Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
To be sure, ‘works’ won’t get you there
either, I know, but in reality, there are changes that WILL take place when you
are truly saved. Your whole life changes, some faster than others, when you
believe.
So, once the mud and spit is washed off, the lost can see,
but not in the light of this world. Their sight would be renewed in the light
of truth and light that still exists in this world. And like me, when they are
truly saved, they will fall to their knees, perhaps not literally, and ask what
they can do to move towards serving God and not the world.
I don’t want you to be blind. I don’t want to see you
stumble or jump into sin as if there is no consequence. I don’t want you to
lean on anger, hatred, judgment, and a lack of peace and joy. So, in love, I
spit in your eye, and pray that God has called you to be His sheep and you hear
his voice.
