{"id":31117,"date":"2024-05-12T22:00:42","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T05:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john-9_13-23-copy\/"},"modified":"2024-05-07T15:27:26","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T22:27:26","slug":"john-9_24-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john-9_24-34\/","title":{"rendered":"What An Effective Witness for Jesus Does"},"content":{"rendered":"

John\u00a0 9:24-34\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0(CLICK HERE FOR\u00a0BIBLE VERSES)<\/a><\/p>\n

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Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

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Today\u2019s passage is John 9:24-34.\u00a0 I encourage you to read the passage yourself first and see what you can glean with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help, then read the GAME sharing below.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

John 9:24-25 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n24\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”
\n25\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 24-25:\u00a0 When questioned again by the Pharisees, the \u201conce was blind but now I see\u201d man is not afraid to testify about what Jesus has done in his life.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t claim to have all the answers.\u00a0 Rather he simply boldly shared his experience about the difference Jesus made in his life.\u00a0\u00a0To be an effective witness for Jesus, you don\u2019t need to have all the answers, but you do need to be willing to share your story.<\/strong><\/p>\n

John 9:26-34 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n26\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
\n27\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”
\n28\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses!
\n29\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”
\n30\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.
\n31\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will.
\n32\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind.
\n33\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
\n34\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 26-34:\u00a0 The Pharisees try to put down and embarrass the healed man, but end up getting embarrassed themselves.\u00a0 The Pharisees insist that they follow Moses, while this healed man follows Jesus and they don\u2019t even know where he comes from (v28-29).\u00a0 In response, the healed man says that the miracle he experienced is amazing and unheard of (v32) and could only be done by someone who is from God (v30-33).\u00a0 According to the healed man, the fact that the Pharisees don\u2019t know where Jesus comes from and yet Jesus opened his eyes suggests that the Pharisees are not experts about God after all (v30).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

One of the quickest and most unfortunate ways to stop dialoguing with another person is to place a label on that person.\u00a0 Once we place the label on that person, we can more easily dismiss them, boxing them within our stereotypes for that label.\u00a0 Once the label goes on, we stop learning from them, being open to what that person has to say, and really having a conversation.\u00a0 That\u2019s what cancel culture does and that\u2019s what was happening here with the Pharisees.\u00a0 Not knowing what else to say to the once blind man, the Pharisees resort to name-calling, labeling him as \u201csteeped in sin at birth\u201d (v34).\u00a0 In so doing they reveal yet another prejudice they had, this time against blind people: they assumed (much like the disciples did in verse 2) that this man\u2019s blindness must have been the result of sin.\u00a0 They also play the power game with him (\u201cHow dare you a commoner lecture us the elite!\u201d) by throwing him out of the temple courts.<\/p>\n

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What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0When you share your faith in a respectful way and people respond with anger and name-calling, don\u2019t take it personally.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0What may be going on is that deep down their insecurities have been triggered and the only way they know how to respond is with disrespect and aggression.\u00a0 But later on, when they are clearer headed, they may find, with the help of the Holy Spirit, that you have a point worth considering.<\/p>\n

Lord Jesus, I pray that like the healed man I would not be afraid to share with others about the difference You have made in my life.\u00a0 I pray that I would handle people\u2019s questions about You in a respectful way and not take it personally if they respond in offensive ways.\u00a0 May I be an effective witness for You.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2022 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is John 9:24-34.\u00a0 I encourage you to read the passage yourself first and see what you can glean with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help, then read the GAME sharing below.\u00a0 Let’s go!
\n\u00a0
\nJohn 9:24-25 (NIV)
\n24\u00a0\u00a0A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”
\n25\u00a0\u00a0He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
\n\u00a0
\nOn verses 24-25:\u00a0 When questioned again by the Pharisees, the \u201conce was blind but now I see\u201d man is not afraid to testify about what Jesus has done in his life.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t claim to have all the answers.\u00a0 Rather he simply boldly shared his experience about the difference Jesus made in his life.\u00a0\u00a0To be an effective witness for Jesus, you don\u2019t need to have all the answers, but you do need to be willing to share your story.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31120,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31117\/revisions\/31120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}