July 29, 2011 … Spiritual Amnesia

Blogger's Note: Posted from the ship harbor in Venice Italy where we are on the Nieuw Amsterdam cruise vessel, awaiting our cruise into the seven seas of Europe/Asia tomorrow with the Insight for Living/Inspirational Cruise team. It was a lovely morning devotional here in our stateroom. And here is what God gave me this morning from my time with Him and John MacArthur's Strength for Today devotional book.

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Passage of the Day: 2nd Peter 1: 9 (see bold below) … 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities [see verses 5 – 7] in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

My Journal for Today: In the past few days in my devotional journal entries, we’ve looked at several spiritual qualities which, when experienced and practiced in the growth of a Christian, help to give clarity to the reality of that believer’s salvation and walk in the Spirit [i.e., sanctification]. And as these qualities [above in verses 5 – 7] become more and more apparent [i.e., matured] in your life, you will experience a boost in the confidence of who you are in Christ.

However, the opposite of that premise is also the case [see in bold/underlined above in 2nd Peter 1: 9]. If we, as Christians, choose to make choices that take us away from Peter’s character list above, moving us farther and farther away from our fellowship with Christ, we, as Peter teaches in today’s passage, can become spiritually myopic and “forgetful,” unable to retain the fruitfulness and spirit-led growth which could be ours in a deep and abiding relationship with Christ. When we choose to abandon the disciplines of the faith, the result will likely cause us to be spiritually short-sighted in our own selfish forgetfulness. And always remember we humans have – and continue to battle – an ever deceitful heart (see Jer. 17: 9), which Satan loves to use as leverage against us when we succumb to its sinfully magnetic power.

That’s why we, as followers of Christ, need to do as Peter exhorts in the passage from his 2nd epistle (above), continually and diligently practicing the spiritual virtues of the faith in order to protect our spiritual vision and memory. So, we must know that the longer we choose to remain blind and/or forgetful to those commitments and/or actions which keep us close to Christ, we will drift farther and deeper into spiritual nearsightedness and forgetfulness, which, in turn, damages our Christian witness.

And that’s how our enemy, Satan, loves to dampen the spiritual power of Christians … to lull us into selfish or sin-laden choices, which render our testimony and witness useless to God and His purposes for our lives. I’m sure that we all want to do what Peter has exhorted [above] and to be empowered by God’s Spirit and grace to be a bright light in this dark world, glorifying God (as Christ exhorted in a verse you likely have memorized, Matt. 5: 16). But the brightness of our light to glorify God will be proportionate to our surrender and discipline as we allow God’s Spirit to refine and mature the fruit His Spirit has implanted in our soul. We, as Christians, choose to receive all God has to offer us and to become all we can be in our relationship with Christ.

My Prayer Today: Lord, help me stay close to you and to be clear of vision to Your saving grace. Amen

2010 – November 5 – Blind Slaves All

Study from God’s Word… John 8: 12 – John 10: 21 … Passage for Reflection: John 9: 25 … NIV He [the blind man given sight by Jesus upon inquire by the Pharisees who claimed Jesus was a sinner and of the devil], “Whether he is a sinner or not I don’t know. One think I do know, I was blind but now I see.”

My Journal for Today: I don’t know how long you’ve been a Christian; but even many non-Christians can quote the first verse of the wonderful hymn which has become a standard in our culture, Amazing Grace, written by the repentant slaver, John Newton, who later in life became a Minister of the Gospel and published this hymn in 1779 …

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

And if you’re a Christian, you can likely sing that refrain to me; and maybe, like me, it has deep and personal significance for you; because, like Newton, I was spiritually blind before an encounter with God in brokenness – and spiritual blindness – at age 39; and I was given spiritual sight just as was the blind man of today’s highlighted text (from John 9: 25), … the man who gave witness to the truth that Jesus, whoever He was/is, had given this man physical sight when he had been blind since birth.

We are all blind slaves to sin before – and until – we are given spiritual sight by God’s Spirit when we truly repent and receive the gift of grace offered by Christ’s death and resurrection to anyone who believes on Christ as the Lord and Savior of all mankind [see Romans 10: 9-13]. And it is not until one truly sees the world God’s way, as documented by His word, that we can know that any blind sinner can become a sighted saint who glorifies God thereafter. That is why, though his life began to change when John Newton was wooed by the Holy Spirit as a slave trader, Newton didn’t feel that his conversion to Christ was real – i.e., his spiritual sight restored – until he was able to see the evil of slavery and denounce it as a mode of trade in England, mentoring the likes of William Wilberforce to decry slavery until it’s eradication in England in 1833.

But if you’re like I was, a spiritual blind-man, I can recall the change in my spiritual sightedness in 1983, when I quit calling myself an “agnostic,” and openly declared Christ as my Lord and Savior. And now, though I’m still a sinner, with a degree of spiritual near-sightedness, I can see the world through ever clearing spiritual eyes given to me as I grow in my surrender to Christ, who is the sight-giver for my life.

I can only pray – and I will below – that Christ has become your sight-giver, allowing you to see the world through His eyes as long as you can be in surrender to His truth and walk in the freedom He, The Christ, offers to any who are blind and desire to see truth with clarity through God’s eyes.

My Prayer for Today: Lord, I pray, here this morning, that all who read what I’ve written here have Your spiritual sightedness. And I pray that I can continue to grow in the clarity of sight only You can give us as believers in the One Who gives sight to the blind. Amen