April 19, 2010, John 9

Key Verse:

“[T]his happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

(John 9:3)

Central Truth:

God uses obedience as an opportunity to work in our lives.


GIVE THEM COOKIES

A blind man sits at the city gate and begs, unable to work or provide for himself. Then he meets Jesus. The disciples are looking for someone to blame for his blindness. Jesus, however, proclaims he was born blind for God to have an opportunity to work in his life. I love this about Jesus. While we sit back and question why? God is cracking his knuckles and getting ready to do his thang. The “why?” is always about His Glory. God wants to show up and show off. Don’t you love it when God shows off in your life?

The ways that God chooses to show off are sometimes weird. I know; I’ve heard the whole “God works in mysterious ways” cliché all my life. It tends to feel cheesy, fake, or like something you say when you don’t know what else to say. God uses the things in our lives that we can’t do for ourselves to create opportunities to display His work. The man could not heal himself, but upon obeying Jesus, his life was forever changed.

God is given glory throughout history for bringing sight to this man. This man’s only claim was that Jesus told him to go and wash, so he went. Simple. Sometimes we continue doing things the same way or the way we think it should be done, only to limit the opportunities that God has to work in our lives. We hold on so tightly to what we know, think, or want that God cannot show off the way He desires. The man obeyed, and his story is still being used to glorify our Savior thousands of years later.

God doesn’t always do what we expect or want Him to do. He often asks us to do something out of the ordinary. He once told me to bring cookies,Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies, to a ragged group of late night partiers who lived in the apartment above us. They just woke up our three year old! It didn’t make sense, nor did I want to bring them cookies. What would happen if I did? It turned out that I just needed to learn how to obey so God could use me to glorify Himself.

Obedience is very scary. We know God can, but the question is will He? If I obey Him, will He show up? You’ll never know, if you don’t give him the chance.