The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk!

So much is going on inside of me right now.  I am watching God move mountains daily. It is blowing me away - the beauty of it all.  Last Friday I was asked to teach at a Bible study. There were eight to ten people there.  All of them have followed hard after God for decades. By the time we left the Bible study, nearly all of these people were delivered from things they have carried their whole life.  One man said, "I knew everything you said.  I have heard it all before, but this is the first time that I have experienced it."  Wow!  God is so good!

Then, I am taking a course at the local university called PERSPECTIVES. This course opens up the Bible so that we can see things from God's point of view. It is fascinating. I am learning so much. This past Tuesday they talked about "The Kingdom of God" and what that means. From a Jews perspective, they were expecting the Messiah to usher in "The Kingdom," but they expected it to be a very physical kingdom, one that would crush the enemy nations. But what they got instead was Jesus. They didn't understand. Even John the Baptist, who was filled with the spirit even from his mother's womb and who watched the spirit in the form of a dove land on Jesus, sent people to ask Jesus, "Are you the Messiah we've been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?"  

John the Baptist was in prison at the time he asked this question.  He was about to be beheaded and he still didn't know for sure that Jesus was the Messiah.  He, too, thought that "The Kingdom" would be ushered in with power, a military/political power. But the message Jesus sent back to John the Baptist was this:  "Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen - the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. And tell him, 'God blesses those who do not turn away because of Me.'" Matthew 11:3-6

This message is hitting my heart hard! The Jews did not understand. They could not see from God's perspective. They had their preconceived ideas about what "The Kingdom" would look like. But it looks like this: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor." Then I got to thinking that we, too, may have preconceived ideas about what this looks like. I know that God physically heals today. I know that He physically causes the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk. But I also know that these physical things are not what He is after. He is after our heart. Last Friday in that Bible study, blind eyes were opened, deaf ears heard, the lame began to walk, the lepers were cured. It all happened in the spirit realm.

According to Brian, the teacher that taught the PERSPECTIVES class on Tuesday, the time period between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ is a MYSTERY. We are living in that time period. God is revealing things to His church that have been hidden for ages and generations. Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:9-11, "I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning. God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was His eternal plan, which He carried out through Christ Jesus our LORD.

So last Friday night in that little Bible study, God displayed His many faceted wisdom in all its glory to all of the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Depression, anxiety, pride, arrogance, unforgiveness, anger, and frustration were all defeated, washed with the blood.  And the heavens shouted, "Glory! Jesus, You are worthy to receive honor and glory and power and dominion! You defeated Your enemies. They are all crushed under Your feet!" And from the earth we shout, "GLORY!" We, too, are looking at the wrong things. We are looking at this very physical world that we live in to see evidence of "The Kingdom." And we can see it. It is there. BUT, when our gaze shifts to the heavens, and we begin to look at things from God's point of view, things come into focus. The blind really do see, the deaf really do hear, and the lame really do walk. Then we, like John the Baptist who was about to be beheaded, can understand when Jesus says, "God blesses those who do not turn away because of Me."

---