Month: November 2024

Thank you Lord for reminding me again this morning of these huge and magnificent truths which are too vast to truly grasp and internalise. That You, for Your own purposes and glory decided to create a universe so huge and complex down to the smallest detail. That in the centre of that purpose you placed man – “what is man that you are mindful of him?” That you did not stand from afar operating us like puppets but came to earth to become intimately involved with us. Taking the lowliest form and experiencing rejection, judgement and pain – to make it possible for us to have an intimate relationship with You. What is man that you are mindful of him to show him such love?

” Live in those thoughts, renew them continually and appreciate all that they mean as you tread the way to glory. The ultimate glory in Me and experience your own glorification in the new heavens and the new earth. The great awakening, the great reveal when you get there is going to astound you, blow your mind. I am waiting with countless others to welcome you and your readers who are on their way here.”

We are still in John ch 9, listening to what Jesus is saying to us. Devoting a whole chapter to the subject of spiritual blindness, introduced by a miraculous healing. The main subject in the background is still the question of who Jesus really is.

The elephant in the room is still the disbelief of the Pharisees. John uses them skilfully as a sounding-board to highlight the true identity of Jesus. They have prejudged Jesus which makes it impossible for them to understand who He really is. Now here is an interesting question, how often does it happen to me, to us that we prejudge a teaching, a biblical understanding or a real life situation? Having made up our minds beforehand we are no longer open to the possibility that we may be wrong and the real truth something different.

The healing happened on the Sabbath, surely by Jesus’s intention. This gives them a reason to make a fuss. Publicity for Jesus’s cause? A large part of the following text is devoted to the blind man’s testimony. By putting immense pressure on him with the threat of excommunication they try and force him to say what they want him to. He remains firm however and sticks to the facts.

This is a genuine example of a real testimony. They try to get him to denounce Jesus as a sinner. He strongly refutes that vss 25,33. He remains strong in repeating what happened to him. “One thing I do know, I was blind but now I see”.

Let us stand back and consider this testimony. Do you realise this is the true and basic testimony of every Christian believer. That is the miracle that each Christian experiences as the first step to faith. Is that true for you? You cannot manufacture a testimony if you do not have one. Each true Christian at some stage has their eyes opened to understand who Jesus is. Not in an intellectual way but leading to a personal meeting with Him.

If you testify in court you are asked to tell the facts of the case as you saw and experienced them. That is our powerful testimony. The Christian testimony however extends further. The result of the meeting with Jesus is demonstrated in a changed life.

My mother became a Christian at the age of 78. Emily and I had been saved a few years earlier. I had plied her with books attempting to get her saved. A few years later she one day said to me, “I read all those books you gave me, but do you know what really persuaded me that Christianity is real? It was the way Emily’s life changed after she was saved.”

Each of us who have met Jesus has a unique testimony and we should be ready to give it whenever the opportunity arises. We cannot continually fall back on our original testimony however. Our testimony is as fresh and real every day arising from our ongoing interaction with Jesus. “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Do you have a testimony? How fresh and real is it? How has your life changed? Can people experience it when they meet you? What is your conversation like? Do you join the “ain’t it awful” club when people start complaining and grumbling around you? People’s eyes and ears are on us all the time.

So friends keep your relationship fresh with Jesus and be ready at any time to answer “I was blind but now I see.” God bless till next week.

I stand at the foot of the cross looking past it up into the heavens, overawed by the might and wisdom and variety of creation, pointing to an amazing Creator. The story revealed in the Bible shows His commitment to restoring everything as it was in tended to be, the story of the cross as it unfolds to reveal the wonderful and intricate plan our Creator is busy unfolding and I am, we all are part of that!

”It is good that you can look at creation and look past it to what and Who it points to. The One who is behind everything, making everything come about, sustaining and maintaining it all. And, yes I have made it ultimately for My glory and for each one of you and your readers. The presence of man in the midst of My creation attests to the fact that you are central to that place and I seek My glory through you as you grow in grace and are ultimately glorified. There we will be joined together in a glory which you can’t even begin to imagine. So persevere – continue to persevere I am holding you all in My grace and love – working to bring all things together for My glory.”

Chapter 9 of John’s Gospel is strategically placed to teach and emphasise a truth which is repeated in many places in God’s word. That truth is that we are all spiritually blind and unable to see and experience His spiritual activities and to meet Him without Him giving us sight. John devotes a whole chapter to the healing of a blind man and an explanation of the spiritual significance of this act. It is placed more or less in the middle of the gospel after a long revelation of who Jesus is. He has been inviting the reader to decide who this Man is by taking us into that world to experience the story for him/herself. Now he makes the important point. No-one can understand all that without Jesus’s supernatural help.

The chapter has one main message but we will deal with it over two weeks. Today we will look at the actual healing and restoration of sight to a man born blind and hear Jesus speak through that.

The first question is,”why did Jesus choose this man? There were probably plenty of blind people in Palestine at the time. Why him?” This is an important question for each of us. We are all praying for some “miracle”. Someone to be healed, someone to be saved, a relationship restored etc. We see miraculous answers to other’s prayers and we ask ourselves, “What am I doing wrong? How can I pray otherwise to get the answer. Maybe there is something I must do or stop doing.” You get the drift?

A large part of the answer to that question lies wrapped up here. We are all invited to come to Jesus in prayer. To bring whatever is on our minds to Him. He promises and can be trusted to hear every word we call out to Him. Here is the crunch. It is His prerogative how and when He will answer. Each of us is unique and on a personal journey with Him and He is handling each plea in a way unique to us and our personality and needs. He hears the loud shouts of joy and of pain with absolute compassion. The quality of our lives belies His grace. He hears even the feeblest whimper of the smoking flax.

One thing He desires from us is humble surrender to Him and a desire to obey His will, as imperfect or weak as that may be. This is hugely liberating. It takes all the pressure off us. We can be our natural selves with Him at all times.

There is no explanation why Jesus put mud on his eyes and told him to wash publicly. Very likely He wanted him to be seen to provoke a response from the Jews. It was certainly not necessary for the healing. He did many other miracles without touching and even from a distance.

The other theme that becomes apparent is even the religious leaders were unable to accept and understand the miracle, even despite its obviousness. This is what sin and unbelief do. True blindness in the face of real sight.

We will pick up this story again next week. I would love to hear your experience of prayer and how God answers in the most unusual and unexpected ways. May He bless each one of you as you discover more about your relationship with Him.

I am supremely conscious this morning of the fact that I am here because Jesus has invited me. I am conscious of the very fact that Jesus has taken every initiative in our relationship, that He wants to meet with me and appreciates my response. Yet that response is so important – I cannot just be a passive spectator. After his invitation in Matthew 11:28 to come to Him He then instructs the listeners, “take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy and light”. I am to become part of his team as he draws alongside me.

”It is My pleasure to experience and see My beloved one’s responding to my call and coming to Me, seeking a continued and deeper relationship. Yes and it starts in the quiet where we can just be together – where I can speak to you and you can listen and respond, but it goes on through the whole day all the time I am there walking with you as you negotiate the many ups and downs of your life, helping you many times without you even being aware of it. Drawing you closer and helping to build your faith as you see and experience Me more clearly. It is a joy to Me to have this relationship with you, especially as you respond to Me “.

As we continue in John 8 from vs 48, we are still among those who are walking the dusty roads of Palestine following the path of this One who appears to be so unique. John, calling us all the time to decide from the evidence who He is. This journey almost reaches a climax in this passage as the Jews call out derisively, “Who do you think you are?” (v53b). The power and significance of Jesus’s reply in vs 56 cannot be overestimated.

It is clear that the Jews have recognised that Jesus is exercising supernatural power in His miracles. However they refuse to accept that He is from God the Father and seek an alternative explanation. They conclude that it must be by a Satanic power that He is performing miracles. To add to the insult they call Him a Samaritan for which there is no evidence at all. Then the derisive challenge, “Who do you think you are?” v53

Much of Jesus’s dialogue that follows is aimed at pointing out to them that by suggesting these things they were not only insulting Him but they were also insulting the Father which was much more serious. He points out that it is actually the Father who is doing the miracles through Him and He is doing them to demonstrate His own glory in Jesus. As they sought to call on Abraham as a witness Jesus points out to them that even Abraham had foreseen the day that He would arrive on earth, but actually He was around long before Abraham appeared on the scene.

Then He makes the climactic statement in v58. “Before Abraham was born, I AM”. This is clearly a reminder of the name God called Himself when he met with Moses in the desert. So in the mysterious way of the Trinity Jesus is in fact claiming to be God Himself. This is a mind boggling claim which deserves our full surrender and worship.

Woven into the passage John has included two statements which continue to demonstrate how to become a full disciple of Jesus. Throughout his gospel John has repeatedly said that the key ingredient to inheriting eternal life is faith. Here He rounds this out with two further statements. Firstly in v51b, “if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death “. Then the proof of true discipleship is “knowing God”. v 55

Drawing this all together the fundamental way to grow in faith is getting to know Jesus better and better. These passages in John should be helping us all to grow in knowledge and understanding of Him, helping our faith to grow in leaps and bounds. May you be blessed as these wonderful truths strike home. Till next week then.

As I sing the song, “He touched me” memories come flooding in – a moment when my general sense that God is out there and somehow Jesus died – in that moment changed to a supreme conviction that He is real and in fact I felt He was standing right there next to me. That moment heralded a total new life path which was launched and on which I walk today with extreme gratefulness, thanksgiving and joy.

”Yes Ian I do seek that intimate relationship with every person who responds to my call. I am there ready, not only to touch you into real life – to give you a new birth, but to continue building that moment into a lifetime of friendship and worship. Although many may not realise it, I am as close to them every moment of the day, as I seemed so close at special times, it simply requires you to be conscious of that, to accept it and enjoy it by faith. Each one of you is supremely precious to Me and I long to touch you and walk with you every day. My love and grace overflows to you all”.

As we return to John 8: 31 I want to revisit the passage and look at something which is going on in the background of this story. There is a play on the concept of fatherhood and sonship which is quite revealing.

As the passage opens there seems some confusion as to the genuineness of the faith that was expressed in verse 30. Despite the Jews being described as having put their faith in Jesus, there is real doubt that they have become true disciples. Jesus uses the words “Son” and “setting free” to provoke a response in them. Their claim to sonship is based on their descent from Abraham. Jesus moves the conversation to demonstrate that real disciple ship requires a recognition and acceptance of their true Father, God.

However he wants them to realise that they do you not really qualify as true sons of Yahweh because words are not sufficient and their actions demonstrate the contrary. The fact that they are planning to kill him shows that God is not really their father. There is only one alternative to God being their father and that is that the devil is in fact their real father.

This brought me to a consideration of the understanding of our relationship with God as Father. In the Old Testament God is seldom called Father and when He is He is usually called the Father. The idea of fatherhood under the Old Covenant was generally regarded as being Father of the whole nation of Israel. Few people in that era had an intimate relationship with him.

When Jesus appears on the scene introducing the New Covenant we see that He often calls Himself the Son. Obviously this indicates a close personal relationship with the Father. As we read this passage it is a prelude to the eventual revelation that once we are “in Jesus” we have an equally close relationship with the Father through Him. This was not possible under the Old Covenant. Reading Romans 8:15 again I was struck by the incredible privilege that we have of being able to call Yahweh “ABBA” the most intimate name for father and we have the full privileges of sonship because we have been adopted into His family.

A few things arise out of this. Firstly it is not good enough to speak words of relationship and following. Our whole lives must demonstrate this new relationship. Words are easy to say but their genuineness is only proved by putting them into practice. We are not saved by works but works flowing from our salvation is a demonstration of the genuineness of that faith.

Secondly something was triggered in me recently by words spoken by Brian during his sermon about fatherhood. I was again reminded of what the genuine Fatherhood of God means to me personally. We tend to measure our concept of fatherhood from our experience of our earthly fathers. No earthly father can demonstrate true fatherhood as God himself does and this has enormous consequences for each one of our faith.

So wallow in the pleasant thought that God, the Creator of everything has chosen to call you and enjoy you as a real son or daughter until next week.