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    Ray Noah

    Founder and President of the Petros Network, a church planting and humanitarian non-profit working in the developing world.

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    The Seeing Blind

    By Acknowledging Our Blindness Will We Experience Sight

    Getting Closer to Jesus: Helen Keller, who, with the help of Anne Sullivan, overcame deafness and blindness to become one of the most inspirational figures in modern history, made this profound observation:

    The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

    Of course, Helen was speaking out of her own courageous and overcoming experience, but I wonder if she was thinking about the Pharisees who rejected Jesus’ healing of the blind man in John 9. Truly, those who were experts in the Old Testament Scripture and obedient to it even beyond what it required were truly more blind than the blind man in this story before Jesus had healed. The Pharisees could physically see, but in the realm that counts for all eternity, they would have made a bat seem like a seeing-eye dog.

    How sad to be so full of knowledge, yet so ignorant of the truth! How sad to be so close to God yet so far from his heart! How sad to have the respect of the people—or was it fear—and yet be under the judgment of the Almighty!

    Though it doesn’t have to be this way, that often happens as people react to Jesus. He came into this world for judgment—according to his own words—but that judgment didn’t take the form you might expect of a judge. Jesus didn’t have to sit behind the bench, hear the evidence, deliver the verdict, and pronounce the punishment; the Pharisees were doing that for him. However, these so-called experts in God’s law were way off the mark in their judgments. In this case, their reaction to what was clearly an outstanding and undeniable miracle of God (John 9:24-34) was to stubbornly cling to the company policy: You can’t heal on the Sabbath!

    And Jesus brought the evidence against them to the surface; they judged themselves. They were seeing yet blinded by the truth that was right before their very eyes! How sad.

    The truth is, when people are exposed to Jesus—his life, ministry, miracles, teaching, life, death, and resurrection—a reaction is forced. They are forced to make a judgment—but that judgment becomes self-incriminating. How we respond to Jesus does not reveal anything new about Jesus, but it does reveal news about us—either the Good News that we have by faith believed (or are willing to believe) in who he claimed to be, or the bad news that unless we have a change of heart and mind, we will be self-condemned to an eternity separated from Christ.

    When exposed to Jesus, if a person finds nothing to desire or admire, then that person has already condemned themselves. But when they see something in Jesus that causes them to bow in awe of his perfect holiness, acknowledge his divinity, and surrender to his Lordship, then they are on the path to eternal life.

    So, what is the takeaway here? Perhaps the greatest attribute that you and I can present before God is a conscious awareness of our own spiritual blindness. To humbly acknowledge before God that, because of our own fallen nature, we cannot see, we are on our way to sight. If we long to see the things of God, Jesus will open our spiritually blind eyes just as much as he physically opened the blind man’s eyes to 20/20 sight.

    What a gift: To know that we are blind apart from our openness to Jesus. It is only those who once were blind—and know it—that now can see. And see they do! Opened to them through Jesus is the sum of all the grace, truth, and glory of God—and what a sight to behold!

    Take the Next Step : Ask God to help you see where you may be persisting in spiritual blindness. Then bring your blind eyes to Jesus for healing. He was pretty good at that, you know—still is!

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    The World’s Most Powerful Testimony

    There's No Argument Against the Word of a Satisfied Customer

    Getting Closer to Jesus: The Pharisees didn’t like the fact that Jesus had healed a man born blind on the Sabbath. The truth is, they didn’t like Jesus at all, and they were looking for him to slip up so they could do away with him once and for all. Perhaps this latest “Sabbath miracle” was their chance.

    They found the man Jesus had healed and began to question him. Had he really been born blind? Was this a hoax? Was he secretly a disciple of Jesus? Would a true man of God really heal on the Sabbath?

    These weren’t just the innocent questions of a curious group. This was an interrogation. The tone of the Pharisees was intimidating and threatening, and the implication was that it wouldn’t go well for this healed man and his family if he didn’t repudiate both the miracle and the miracle worker.

    Then, in a flash of unrehearsed inspiration and simple brilliance, the man parries their attack and thrusts the most persuasive of all daggers into their opposition against Jesus: The testimony of a satisfied customer. All this man knew was that he was once blind, but now he could see. Case closed; end of story. The Pharisees were defenseless. What response could they give against such overwhelming evidence?

    That is the simple but irrefutable power of a personal testimony. When you speak for Christ as a satisfied customer, as one whose life has been changed forever, as one who was once spiritually blinded by sin but now can see by God’s grace, there is no defense. Who can argue against that?

    Your testimony may not be as dramatic as the healing of the man who had been born blind, but it is just as powerful a weapon as his. Why are you a Christian? How has Jesus made a difference in your life? What do you find in your faith that nothing else in the world can match? How has God’s power helped you to overcome adversity or discouragement in life? There is unassailable evidence in each of those stories, so learn to talk about them with people who don’t share your faith in God. You, too, are a satisfied customer, and a satisfied customer makes the most compelling witness of all.

    Take a moment today to think through your story. Perhaps you should write it out—one or two pages will be enough. Simply describe what your life was like before Christ, how you came to know him, and the joys and benefits of what it means to now be his follower.

    I guarantee that God will give you an opportunity before too long to share your story with someone who needs to know Jesus.

    Take the Next Step : As suggested above, write out your own “before and after” account of knowing Jesus. And expect to share it—an opportunity is just around the corner.

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    Make Hay While the Sun Shines

    Your Life Has an Expiration Date … And It’s Fast Approaching

    Getting Closer to Jesus: Do you live with a sense of urgency as it relates to God’s timetable? Our grandparents and generations before them seemed to understand that life came with an expiration date. We don’t! Probably because life was hard for them, opportunities weren’t dished out on a silver platter, and life expectancy was significantly less than it is today, they approached life soberly than we do today.

    Our generation seems to fit the profile of the people Jesus described who will be living in the last days:

    The world will be at ease—banquets and parties and weddings—just as it was in Noah’s time before the sudden coming of the Flood; people wouldn’t believe what was going to happen until the Flood actually arrived and took them all away. So shall my coming be. (Matthew 24:37-39)

    In this John 9 story, Jesus heals a man born blind on the Sabbath—a real no-no in first-century Jewish religious culture. As Jesus performs this miracle, serious questions are thrown his way from both the crowd of astounded onlookers as well as the angry Jewish spiritual leaders. The crowd peppers Jesus with “stump the messiah” questions: “Why was this man born blind? Was it his parents’ sin or his?” The religious leaders’ interrogative was more dastardly: How could you do this on our holy day, the Sabbath?

    Never mind that a flesh-and-blood miracle was standing before their very eyes in living color, they wanted to know who he thought he was to “work” on a day when no work was to be done.

    Then, in the midst of this questioning, Jesus makes this statement about carrying out the task assigned by God before time expires. It seems a bit out of the blue and disconnected until you consider the context.

    On the one hand, since the man had been born blind, it would have been perfectly acceptable to allow things to remain as they were. The fates had determined this man’s condition; no need to rock his boat. On the other hand, Jesus knew that performing this miracle on this day—the Sabbath—would incite the ire of the religious rule keepers and even seal their blind hatred for him. So, it would have been easier for Jesus not to do this, or to delay doing it.

    However, Jesus was not one to avoid conflict or take the easy path, so in this statement, he was sending both a message and a warning. The message was that the work of God must take priority over everything else in life—religious rules, man’s time, cultural mores, and people’s feelings. The warning was that there was a limited amount of time and opportunity to carry out God’s work. Tomorrow may not come; night is falling; if we are to do the work of God, we must act as if this is our window of opportunity, because that divine window is closing.

    Now, that truth applies not only to Jesus, but it also applies to you and me as well. Notice that Jesus said that “‘we’ must do the work of the One who sent me.” As God-followers, we have been given the same two things Jesus had been given: a divine assignment and a limited amount of time. So, stop underestimating the brevity of your life and the time you have to make your days count; look up and see that eternity is in view. James 4:14-16 tells us,

    You don’t even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.

    James says that it is foolish and downright sinful to assume that we’ve got tomorrow. Why? Because life is unpredictable: “You don’t even know.” None of us knows what is going to happen tonight, much less next year: a war could start, the economy could collapse, your friends could leave you. That is not meant to frighten you, but to cause you to be more dependent on God and more serious about doing his will while you keep an eye on eternity.

    Not only is life unpredictable, but James is also saying that life is brief. “Your life is a mist,” he says. Mist comes from the Greek word “atmos,” which is where we get our word “atmosphere.” Your life is like fog; it rolls in at night, but it burns off by noon. Who knows how long you will live? None of us does. I’m only one heartbeat away from eternity. Life is short; you go from highchair to wheelchair, from diapers to decay in a millisecond. As Chris Matakas said,

    We rise to meet each day because there will come a time when the day will rise without us.

    The point is, there are no guarantees, so don’t presume on tomorrow. For sure, plan for the future, but live like today is the last. Moses prayed, “Lord, teach us to number our days aright, so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12) Wisdom would teach you to live today as if you knew that tomorrow you would stand before God. And that is a great way to live.

    The early Christians lived that way. They lived with a sense of urgency about time. They learned to order their lives by seriously seeking and then immediately living out the Lord’s will. They came up with a Latin watchword to remind each other of the importance of actively keeping the Lord’s will in mind. It was Deo Volente: “If God wills.” In fact, during certain periods of history, believers would end their letters with “D.V.,” which stood for Deo Volente. Then they would respond to “If God wills,” with another phrase, “Carpe Diem: Seize the day!”

    What a great life philosophy for living like Jesus lived: “If the Lord wills, I will seize the day!”

    Take the Next Step : What is it that God is calling you to do that you have been putting off? Telling someone that you love them or asking for their forgiveness? Volunteering to lead a ministry? Going on a mission trip? Getting counseling for an addiction? Having a difficult conversation with a loved one? Witnessing to someone you care about? Carl F.H. Henry said, “The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.” Jesus says to you, “Now is the time, night is at hand, so do the work my Father has assigned to you.” Today is the day!

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    Sickness and Suffering Explained

    It is Gods Job to Heal, it is Your Job to Trust

    Getting Closer to Jesus: Suffering—where does it originate? When someone gets sick, contracts a disease, or is born with a disability, is that the result of personal sin—either theirs or their parents? Has the devil inflicted the suffering upon them? Did God cause it? When we, or the people we love, are forced to endure suffering, we get quite passionate about finding answers to those questions.

    What Jesus said was that not all sickness and suffering is the result of a specific sin. However, in a general sense, because we live in a world broken by sin, bad stuff that was not a part of God’s original plan for human beings now happens. And to be sure, the Bible does teach that I can bring some physical suffering on myself. If I do not follow God’s principles, my body will experience the consequences. If I do not eat right, sleep enough, and exercise regularly—which is a sin since my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit—then I should not be surprised when my body reacts with infirmity. If I do not listen when God’s Word says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but pray about everything” and I worry a lot—which is a sin—if I get an ulcer, then I am to blame. If resentment builds in my spirit—which is a sin, since I am not to allow bitterness to take root and defile me—then the doctors say that what is eating me will not only eat away at my mental health, but it will also take bite out of my physical health.

    So, when it comes to suffering and sickness, for sure, I need to pay attention to the sin-factor in my life. When sin is at the root, then James says that confession and prayer is the appropriate response to my suffering:

    Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. (James 5:13-16, NLT)

    However, not all suffering is the result of specific personal sin. Jesus blew that idea out of the water here in John 9 when he talked about the man born blind and cleared up the notion that the blindness was the result of neither his nor his parents’ sin. Sometimes God permits suffering in your life simply because He wants to heal you and let it be a testimony to the world. John 11:4 tells the story of Lazarus, who was sick and near death. In that case, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

    Now God doesn’t heal every sickness; if he did, none of us would ever die and go to heaven. But for sickness that is within the Lord’s will to heal, James 5:14 says that we are to do a couple of things: One, we are to take the initiative and summon the spiritual leaders of the church, and two, we are to have those elders anoint us with oil and pray.

    This prayer for healing is to be done “in the name of the Lord.” The “name” represents Christ’s authority, which is the basis for all healing. When we offer prayer for healing under these conditions and in that manner, James says, “Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well.” (James 5:15, NLT)

    God is the healer, not the person praying. Let’s never forget that! In this age of flamboyant faith healers, sometimes you get the idea that it is their ability and spirituality that gets the job done. It is not; God alone deserves the credit.

    That brings us back to what Jesus said about suffering and sickness: Sometimes it is not the result of sin. It is simply so that God’s power and glory can be revealed in the restoration!

    Never forget, it is your job to trust—no matter what, no matter how long. It is God’s job to heal now, later, or in the age to come.

    Take the Next Step : If you are suffering from an illness, study James 5:13-18 and follow what it says. And memorize Jeremiah 30:17, “‘I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the Lord.” That is a pretty good promise to claim, wouldn’t you say? And, in the in-between time of praying and healing, no matter how long that takes, trust!

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    A Forced Choice

    Take or Leave It—Jesus Claimed to Be God

    Getting Closer to Jesus: There were many reasons, I suppose, the Jews wanted to kill Jesus: They were jealous of his popularity with the people. They hated that he didn’t defer to their spiritual authority and were put off that he wasn’t impressed by their religious heritage. They were irked that he ministered to marginalized people, hung out with the wrong crowd, operated outside the lines of Jewish protocol, and a thousand other things that he did, or didn’t do, that bugged the daylights out of them. In general, the genuine authority and real power that Jesus displayed in his life and ministry exposed the spiritual impotence of these Jewish elites, which in turn, brought out fierce insecurities displayed in their childish opposition and irrational hatred of the Lord.

    But the main reason their hatred turned murderous? It wasn’t that Jesus sort of acted like God. It wasn’t that he beat around the bush about his deity. It wasn’t that he made some veiled and esoteric claim about Messiahship. No—he flat-out claimed to be God.

    That is why they wanted to kill him. In fact, Jesus committed the ultimate faux pas by using the revered designation for God that no god-fearing Jew would utter so causally and irreverently: “I AM!” Are you kidding me: “Before Abraham was, I Am!” What was he thinking? Saying that about yourself in that culture could get you killed.

    Of course, Jesus knew that. In fact, his bold claim would get him killed. Jesus didn’t care—he was God come in the flesh, and he wasn’t going to back away from that claim one inch. That is why he came, and that is precisely what he claimed—no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

    When you consider that claim Jesus purposely made about himself, you are forced to eliminate all the other nice-sounding, politically correct things people say they believe about him. In other words, Jesus cannot be just a good teacher, just a great moral leader, just a respected prophet, just a great figure of history. With Jesus, you have to eliminate “just” from your vocabulary. Jesus left the Jews with no other option, and he doesn’t leave you with another option either. As C.S. Lewis said,

    [With Jesus] you must make a choice. Either He was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman, or something worse. You can shut Him up as a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to.

    I am sure glad the Great I Am forced that choice on me! How about you?

    Take the Next Step : Jesus! You got to do something with him. You’ve got to love him or hate him…but you really can’t live with anything in between and live an intellectually honest life. So, be honest—where do you line up with Jesus? I hope you go with what he claimed—and proved—about himself.

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    Enjoy Your New Time Zone

    Be Totally Aware and Completely Submitted to God’s Timetable

    Getting Closer to Jesus: Twice, we are told in John 7 and 8 that the Jewish leaders, increasingly threatened by Jesus, tried to arrest him but couldn’t. The reason they couldn’t? Because Jesus’s time had not yet come!

    Several times in John, Jesus reveals his total awareness and complete submission to God’s timetable. In John 2:4, Jesus tells his mother, who is insisting that he perform the miracle of turning water into wine, that this is not the right for him to “go public” with his ministry. In John 12:23 and 27, Jesus reveals to his disciples that he will be crucified as a part of God’s redemptive plan for mankind. He is grappling with that reality as a man (his own suffering and death) and as deity (taking into himself the world’s sin), but at the end of the day, he is willing to submit to the beautiful but awful reality of dying on the cross—because the hour—the perfect time—has come. In John 13:1, Jesus reveals his perfect love to his disciples by washing their feet, knowing that the hour of his arrest and crucifixion was at hand. Speaking of which, in John 17:1, Jesus realizes the weightiness of God’s hour—the ultimate triumph of Divine life over death through the cross—is now upon him, so he offers his moving “high priestly” prayer that we have come to know and love.

    We may think time marches on, unimpeded by fate, uncontrolled by human planning or Divine intervention, but Jesus had a different view of time. And why not, as the Word, the creative agent of the Holy Trinity, he had created time and gifted it to the Father as servant to his eternal plan. Jesus knew that time was in God’s wise and loving hands—every day, every hour, and every split second!

    A man named David had also come into that revelation. In Psalm 139, King David wrote, “Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139:16) David knew and relied upon this immutable truth that Jesus was depending on, that God knew the exact number of days that David would live, and he would not die a day sooner nor live a day longer than what God had foreordained. And for David, nothing could change that—not betrayal, not war, not poverty, not disease—nothing. God alone held that power over David’s life and foreknew the hour of David’s death.

    That’s why David and Jesus found this world a perfectly safe place. That’s why even in the midst of his crisis, they could calmly walk into the storm, courageously walk into battle, and fearlessly face the angel of death—circumstances that would cause ordinary humans to lose heart—because they knew it was the Lord who was sustaining them.

    When you understand that your life—your days, your hours, your life—is in the sovereign hand of God, you just think that way; you just live your life that way. Time—your time—is servant to the Master’s plan.

    Arthur W. Pink wrote, “A consciousness of our powerlessness should cast us upon Him who has all power. Here then is where a vision and view of God’s sovereignty helps, for it reveals His sufficiency and shows us our insufficiency.”

    Yes, God is sovereign, and he has infinitely large hands—big enough to hold everything that exists. And like Jesus and David, your life is there in his hands too. You know that…or maybe you don’t. But even if you don’t, that truth remains firm, and because of the saving faith that you have expressed in Jesus Christ, your address has permanently changed to God’s hands.

    It’s high time you start enjoying your new time zone.

    Take the Next Step : Memorize Psalm 139:16. Every day this week, when you are tempted to worry over your life, quote that verse to your worries.

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    Not Guilty

    A Grace Grenade

    Getting Closer to Jesus: If I were writing this story instead of John, the scene would have called for Jesus to order down fire from heaven to torch this nasty bunch of teachers of religion who had brought the adulterous woman before the Lord. At the very least, I would have had Jesus snatching the poor lady from their grasp and beaming over to Galilee to set her free. That would have made a great story—Oscar-worthy, I’m sure!

    But as we have come to expect of Jesus, he does the unexpected. Instead of special effects and edge-of-your-seat drama, he simply stoops over and writes in the sand. Do you ever wonder what he wrote? “Jesus was here,” or perhaps he traced out the Ten Commandments, or better yet, a list of the religious elites’ secret sins or maybe even the names of their mistresses?

    Whatever it was, the religious “KGB” kept pressing until finally, he said, “Look, if any of you are without sin, you can be the first one to throw a stone at her.” Then he began to scribble again, and with those words, Jesus lobbed a grenade into their midst that exploded their smug self-righteousness. Having been disarmed, one by one the Pharisees, from the oldest to the youngest, walked away, leaving only Jesus and this sinful woman.

    Now what would happen to the adulterous woman? Could she expect to get preached at again, some more condemnation, another helping of humiliation, and a pile of rejection? That had been the pattern of her life so far. But instead, Jesus gently asks, “Where are your accusers? Has no one judged you guilty?”

    She replied, “Sir, they’re gone…they didn’t judge me guilty.”

    Then Jesus lobbed another grenade—this one a grace grenade that utterly exploded this sinful woman’s self-condemnation and turned her sad world right side up, perhaps for the first time ever: “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

    So just what was it that Jesus wrote in the sand? I think it is highly likely that he bent over and with his finger, etched these words: “Not guilty!”

    A few weeks later, Jesus again wrote those very same words in the sand. This time, it was not with his finger but with blood that dripped from his nail-pierced hands and feet, leaving an indelible stain on the ground at the foot of the cross. This time it wasn’t just meant for an adulterous woman, it was meant for unfaithful, guilty people like you and me:

    “Not Guilty. Paid in full. Completely forgiven.”

    I don’t know what that grace explosion does for you, but it makes me want to “go and sin no more.”

    Take the Next Step : Have you thanked the Lord lately for his grace—grace that has covered all of your sins? Perhaps now would be a great time to do that. And maybe today would be a great day to extend his grace to another undeserving sinner like you.