5.4 – Overcoming Blindness
Posted by knowgrowshow on March 20, 2008
Today’s Readings: Colossians 3.1-7; Acts 9.1-9; 22.1-11; Revelation 3.14-22
Do you ever sit in church and wonder why some people are there? I do. Sometimes when I look at the faces of some of the people, and ask myself, “Why?” If I disliked something as much as they appear to, I would stop it. Yet, there are people who come to church each week and (judging by the looks on their faces) are not enjoying one minute of it.
There is another group of people in our churches/youth groups. These are the people who THINK they are doing God a favor, or service, by being there to attend the church service. These are the ones who will likely complain all day about things they don’t like, but never do anything to fix them.
Today, I want to build off something I saw last night. In our youth group, we have some students who truly want to get this! They really DO want to HEAR from the GOD of HEAVEN. However, there are also students who are basically hoping that service will end as soon as possible so they can get out. I saw that on faces last night. Now, HERE IS MY FEAR – I am scared that we are used to God, the Word of God, the Worship of God, and the people of God.
Why can’t we see that we are messed up sometimes? Why is it so difficult to overcome? Imagine the situation with Paul in Acts 9, and read Acts 22, for his own version of the events. If you had walked up to Paul and asked him what he was doing headed to Damascus, he would have replied “I’m going to serve my God because I have such a passion for his name. I want to take a stand for him against those false cult-following Christians…” Now, in his mind (as we see in Acts 22) he was full of the ZEAL of God and wanted to SERVE God. However, he was wrong in the way he did, because Christ was the TRUE AND LIVING GOD.
Convincing Paul that he was wrong for persecuting those who followed the Way of Christ would be almost impossible. He TRULY BELIEVED that he was doing right! He was BLIND guys! He thought he was doing what was right, he THOUGHT he was good before God, but he was on a path that was sending him straight to HELL. Please get this! He was blind and did not know it, so if someone told him that he was blind, he would have never believed them. He had ZEAL! He was SERVING! He was PASSIONATE about God’s GLORY! And yet, he was BLIND to the truth.
Now for us today, I hope you have already drawn the connection with REVELATION 3 and the letter to LAODICEA. God says that while we Laodiceans think we are RICH, we are POOR, while we think we have NEED OF NOTHING, but we are WRETCHED, DESTITUTE, NAKED, and BLIND!!!
So then, how do we fix that? God says if any man will HEAR his voice (the Word of God) and OPEN the door to him, he will come in and show us the way. Notice, in Revelation 3.21 God says there will be come that OVERCOME…will you be one of the few in this generation that OVERCOMES being BLIND and DESTITUTE and thinking that you are RICH and have NEED OF NOTHING??? Remember, the only way to OVERCOME it is by the voice of God – Let’s get in the Word this morning.
