Devotion for May 14th

Read: John 9 ​

Memorize: John 9:2-3 ​

Prayer: Pray for the gospel witness of our church. Pray for the International Mission Board. Pray for members battling illness. Express gratitude to Christ for the wisdom of discernment that he gives.

This weeks devotions will come from the written words of Ravi Zacharias. Today’s excerpt is from his book “Jesus Among the Other Gods”. Please pray for his family as they minister to him at this time.

Devotion

Jesus Opens Our Eyes to the Real Evil that Exists

The surest evidence that evil is not the enemy of meaning is this inescapable existential reality: that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain but from being weary of pleasure. This obvious truth is conspicuously absent in the arguments of skeptics. It is not pain that has driven the West into emptiness; it has been the drowning of meaning in the oceans of pleasures. Pleasure gone wrong is a greater curse than physical blindness. The blindness to the sacred is the cause of all evil.

This is where Jesus’ answer to the question of the blind man comes through with extraordinary power and relevance. When He says that the man’s blindness was due neither to the sin of the man nor of this parents, but so that the glory of God might be displayed, the lesson is drastic because the message is profound. The restoration of his spiritual sight was indispensable to his understanding of the horror of sin’s blindness. Darkness is devastating, and Jesus offers light and life. His cure was to help them see what they were really blind to, yet refused to see.

The problem of evil has ultimately one source. It is the resistance to God’s holiness that blanketed all of creation. It is a mystery because we are engulfed in it – spiritual blindness. And there is ultimately only one antidote, the glorious display of God at work within a human soul, bringing about His work of restoration. That transformation tenderizes the heart to become part of the solution and not part of the problem. Such a transformation begins at the cross.

But like the skeptics of Jesus’ day, some want to find a reason to deny who Christ is and the healing He can bring. Like the neighbors, the curious masses wish to know how it happened. Like the parents, those who come into close contact will witness the transformation that Christ brings. And like the blind man, those who have personally experienced Christ’s power to transform their lives will understand the greater blindness from which they have been rescued.