Chris' Corner -- Sunday, October 11, 2020
In my fist year of school my roommate was a blind preacher and a recent graduate of the school of preaching. Basically he was blind from birth. He had some complications soon after he was born. His eyes were damaged and he became permanently blind.
Randy, was very independent in familiar surroundings, but outside of these areas, he needed help. I became his “right hand man” and more and more grateful for something I had taken for granted—my vision.
The apostle Peter wrote about a different kind of blindness. He told Christians, who had been driven into foreign lands because of persecution, about “spiritual” blindness. He told them, through His power, God had given them “all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue” (1:3).
He went on to remind them (and us) of the “exceedingly great and precious promises” they had as “partakers of the divine nature” because they had “escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (1:4).
With all that God has done on our behalf, Peter tells us we need to do our part. We must contribute in the process by, “giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:5-8).
If we fail, we will become spiritually blind. “For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins” (1:9).
How grateful we are for our eyesight! How difficult it is for those who have lost theirs. Or like my friend, those who have never known what it’s like to be able to see.
Peter said when we fail to increase in the Christian graces, and make them part of our lives, we become impaired in our spiritual vision. We will not be able to see clearly the most fundamental truths needed to stay on the path of righteousness. We will reach a point where we will forget the very reason we were baptized and cleansed of our sins.
Being spiritually blind, we are left to stumbling around, not being able to discern good and evil, thus falling into the temptations put in our path by our enemy, the devil. We will be devoured by him because we couldn’t see the way of escape God provided for us (1 Peter 5:8; 1 Cor. 10:13).
In Ephesians 4:17–19 Paul describes those who walk “in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”
What darkness and confusion there is when we have forgotten God’s love and Christ’s sacrifice for our sins! How sad to no longer be able to see and know the mercy, compassion, and grace of God (cf. Acts 28:26, 27). God help us to continue our walk with Him in the light (1 John 1:7).