Blessed Are Your Eyes

Ignorance is bliss. What do I mean? Well, my eyes see so much corruption in our world, and I wish I could return to a time when I didn’t see it. A time of innocence when I walked around with rose-colored glasses thinking we all had a bright and rosy future.

But those days are long past, and my eyes do see.

Still, not all see what I see. So, why can’t many see our overreaching government preparing us to accept Antichrist and his mark? Do I see these things because I’m a fanatic—too focused on Bible prophecy and not enough on the love of Jesus? Maybe, but then again, maybe not.

As Jesus walked this earth, He spoke in parables.[1] When His disciples asked Him why, He answered, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore, I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”[2]

What…? Jesus explained, saying, “And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive…”[3]

Most of Israel could not see their long-awaited Messiah when He stood in their midst since He, Jesus, did not fit the narrative the Pharisees put forth. Israel rejected Jesus for the same reason I might not want to see what is going on today. Our world looks much better bathed in a pink hue.

But blind eyes, deaf ears, and hardness of heart were conditions that plagued Israel all their days. And Moses said it first, “Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.”[4] Paul explaining this phenomenon wrote, “…that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”[5]

God blinded Israel so we could come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior while they rejected Him. But this does not explain why some are given eyes to see, and some are not. Or why what some have will be taken away.

Just before His crucifixion, Jesus said to the Father, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world…For I have given to them the words which You have given Me…and they have believed that You sent Me.”[6]

So, God the Father chose the disciples and gave them to Jesus. Jesus gave these men the Father’s words, and by faith through the power of the Holy Spirit, they believed. At that moment, they were different—God had given them the ability to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. The disciples saw who Jesus was—they heard and understood His Word—even the parables.[7]

As a result, they acted differently.

The disciples did not cause their own change. Instead, the Truth within them provided eyes to see. In turn, they bore fruit for Jesus is the VINE…the Father, the VINEDRESSER who prunes that the branches may bear more fruit. But, Jesus said, “…every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away…”[8]

Matthew 13 began with Jesus’s parable of the Sower—four types of ordinary, everyday people who hear the True Word of God. Their difference—the condition of their heart, which only God knows—a hard path, rocky, thorny, or good soil.

The Word had fallen on the good soil of each true disciple’s heart. And Jesus said, “…blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.”[9]

So, my friend, if you see things differently—our present world careening toward the end times scenario laid out in our Bible, take heart, for—blessed are your eyes. That Day will not overtake you as a thief.[10]

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[1] Psalm 78:2

[2] Matthew 13:10-13

[3] Matthew 13:14-15; Isaiah 6:9-10

[4] Deuteronomy 29:2-4

[5] Romans 11:25

[6] John 17:6-8

[7] Matthew 13:51

[8] John 15:2

[9] Matthew 13:16

[10] 1 Thessalonians 5:4

This Man

To you, who is Jesus?

 

To the typical, unbelieving man on the street, Jesus may be a good man, a teacher, an avatar of the divine, or even a myth invented by man to control the masses. I can’t remember where I heard this last comment, but it saddens me. I feel the anger and cynicism behind it and I sense the person’s hatred of anyone they believe is telling them what they can or cannot do.

 

The problem with the unbeliever’s conclusions about Jesus is their conscience; that innate awareness of right and wrong. They can’t explain it or get rid of it. They’re convicted by a law they refuse to acknowledge and it angers them. Yet, the only reason we know right from wrong is because God wrote it. The Almighty, Triune God set the Standard and no matter what we do there’s no getting around it.

 

Still, unbelievers really only want the things they deem right to be right and the things they deem wrong to be wrong. But what happens when their “wrong” becomes someone else’s “right”?

 

They have no answers and it’s much like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, who rebuked Him for socializing with people they considered unworthy. “…the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, ‘THIS MAN receives sinners and eats with them.’”^[1] Once, by invitation, Jesus went to have dinner with one of those religious leaders. While He was there, a woman came into the house, wept, washed His feet with her tears, kissed and anointed them with fragrant oil. The Pharisee chided Jesus in his heart, “…saying, ‘THIS MAN, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.’”^[2]

 

The Pharisee, denying his own sin condition, found fault in Jesus. Yet, Pilate said not once, but twice, “I have found no fault in THIS MAN…”^[3] Nevertheless, the chief priests and the crowd shouted, “…Away with THIS MAN, and release to us Barabbas”^[4]

 

They preferred Barabbas, a hardened criminal, to Jesus, the Sinless, Son of God. Still, they could not know their rejection of Him would be for the salvation of many, beginning with one thief who hung on a cross next to Jesus. Realizing Jesus was God, come in the flesh, this thief acknowledged his sin and rebuked his companion hanging on the other cross. “We suffer,” he cried, “…justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but THIS MAN has done nothing wrong.”^[5] Jesus forgave him and changed the place where this repentant thief would spend eternity.

 

Then, darkness fell upon the land for about three hours while God, the Father, placed the sin of the world upon Jesus “…and the veil of the temple was torn in two.”^[6] In those three hours, the pain Jesus suffered was worse than the physical pain causing death to His body.

 

http://www.priestsforlife.org

As light returned, Jesus hung there battered and bleeding, yet still possessing physical strength. His body was not yet ready to die. So, proving His earlier statement:  “No one takes my life away from me. I give it up of my own free will. I have the right to give it up, and I have the right to take it back…”^[7] Jesus cried in a loud voice, “’…Father, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT.’ Having said this, He breathed His last. Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God, saying, “Certainly THIS MAN was innocent.”^[8]

 

Innocent indeed! Although the Jews demanded His crucifixion and the Romans nailed Him to the cross, it was my sin and yours that put Him there. “For sin pays its wage – death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”^[9]

 

THIS MAN died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.^[10]

 

So again, I ask, “To you, who is Jesus?”

 

Have a blessed Resurrection Day!

[1] Luke 15:2

[2] Luke 7:39

[3] Luke 23:4, 14

[4] Luke 23:18

[5] Luke 23:41

[6][6] Luke 23:44-45

[7] John 10:18 GNT

[8] Luke 23:46-47 NASB

[9] Romans 6:23

[10] I Corinthians 15:3-4