“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed.” (Luke 4:18, NASB)
If you play golf, there are times when you have been asked to host a friend of a friend or a business associate. If you are like me, there may be a pause in your response to say yes. In some ways, this is like a blind date—you don’t really know if the person can play, and to spend four hours together could be a challenge.
Fortunately, a recent round of golf turned a stranger into a friend. Steve is a senior pastor of a large church in San Jose, California, and we shared stories all the way back to high school. The subject of pride as a teenager came up and Steve told me that he was so self-conscious and concerned about his looks that he refused to wear glasses while playing football. He was a halfback and kickoff returner. He couldn’t catch the ball on the fly, so he let it bounce in front of him and then would pick it up to run.
When he finished the story, it occurred to me that we often allow our pride to blind us to the truth and that many of our unbelieving friends aren’t prepared spiritually to believe. That’s what Paul was thinking when he wrote to the church in Corinth: “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Sometimes spiritual awakening takes a health challenge, financial downturn, divorce, or simply a deep gnawing in our soul that something is missing.Spiritual perspective is not gained by worldly and cultural relevance. The Jews in Galilee were sure they had every religious thought worked out until Jesus showed up “in the power of the Spirit.” From Isaiah’s prophecies he proclaimed himself to be the Savior they were seeking, and yet the people rejected him, blinded by their own perceptions and enraged by his messianic claims.
So what can shake our preconceived notions and worldly perspectives? Sometimes spiritual awakening takes a health challenge, financial downturn, divorce, or simply a deep gnawing in our soul that something is missing.
Paul understood this. In Acts 9, when he was still known as Saul, we see him hunting down Jesus’ followers to arrest them. Then came the ultimate spiritual awakening: God spoke and Saul was physically blinded for three days. The incident brought him to unchanging belief in Christ.
Our own blinding condition is rarely physical. Instead, it may come in the form of pride, selfishness, greed, or worry—anything that keeps us from accepting the things of the Spirit of God.
As my friend who would let the football drop in front of him would tell you, he didn’t want to wear the glasses he needed to see clearly and catch the ball and run. Fortunately for him and the thousands of lives he has touched, God grabbed him at a Young Life outreach and his “scales fell from his eyes.”
On this day, let’s not be blinded by pride. Let’s be led by the power of the Spirit, seeing Jesus for who he really is.
—
Chris Hermann
November 23, 2020
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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