{"id":31121,"date":"2024-05-13T22:00:45","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T05:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john-9_24-34-copy\/"},"modified":"2024-05-07T15:33:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T22:33:40","slug":"john-9_35-41","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john-9_35-41\/","title":{"rendered":"Your True Spiritual Condition Is Revealed By THIS"},"content":{"rendered":"

John\u00a0 9:35-41 \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 9:35-41.\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 9:35-38 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n35\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
\n36\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”
\n37\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
\n38\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 35-38:\u00a0 When the healed man was thrown out by some Pharisees, Jesus goes out to find him.\u00a0 During this second encounter with Jesus, Jesus teaches the healed man more of who Jesus is, calling himself the Son of Man, and leads the man to saving faith in him.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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  1. Faith is a process.<\/strong>\u00a0 Often people will not profess saving faith in Jesus after just one encounter with Jesus, but after multiple encounters.\u00a0 So when you\u2019re sharing your faith with others, don\u2019t be discouraged if that person does not come to saving faith in Christ instantaneously.\u00a0 Realize that faith is a process.\u00a0 What you are doing in that person\u2019s life is planting a seed, or watering a seed that has been planted.\u00a0 God willing, one day, when it\u2019s time, that seed will sprout.<\/li>\n
  2. Jesus reveals himself to this once blind man, calling himself the Son of Man.\u00a0 The once blind man believes and begins to worship Jesus.\u00a0 Notice Jesus doesn\u2019t stop him from worshiping.\u00a0 Instead Jesus receives his worship.\u00a0 This is further proof that\u00a0Jesus believed himself to be God and worthy of worship<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  3. I love how Jesus didn\u2019t just reach out to the man once.\u00a0 Rather, after the man is thrown out of the temple, Jesus reached out to him again.\u00a0 I love that.\u00a0 First it shows that\u00a0when we are excluded and rejected by others, Jesus still receives us<\/strong>.\u00a0 Second it shows that Jesus keeps on pursuing us, not just once, but over and over.\u00a0 As David said in Psalm 23, \u201cgoodness and love follow me all the days of my life\u201d, so God continues to pursue you with His love to this day.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    John 9:39-41 (NIV)<\/strong>
    \n39\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
    \n40\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
    \n41\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.<\/em>On verses 39-41:\u00a0 What does Jesus mean in verse 39 when he says, \u201cFor judgment I have come into this world\u201d?\u00a0 Didn\u2019t Jesus earlier say that he came not to condemn the world but to save it (John 3:17)?\u00a0 How do we reconcile this?\u00a0 Here\u2019s one way to think of it:\u00a0 The heart and the intention of Jesus\u2019 first coming was to save as many people as possible from sin and death (John 3:17).\u00a0 At the same time, because people will respond to Jesus\u2019 offer of salvation in different ways \u2013 some accepting Him, some rejecting Him \u2013 Jesus\u2019 coming indirectly has the effect of \u201cjudging\u201d, or showing, who are the ones who truly see and the ones who think they see but are actually blind.\u00a0 In this way, Jesus\u2019 coming is the litmus test that helps God judge or determine whether a person is spiritually blind or spiritually seeing.\u00a0 As one pastor puts it, judgment is not the reason for Jesus\u2019 coming, but an indirect result of Jesus\u2019 coming.<\/p>\n

    In this case, we have two very different responses to Jesus: the once blind but now healed man believes and worships Jesus (v38), while the Pharisees who claim to see are blind to who Jesus is (v40-41).<\/p>\n

    This miracle of Jesus healing the blind man is a real life parable that teaches us what spiritual blindness and spiritual sight really look like.<\/p>\n

    What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0A person\u2019s attitude toward Jesus reveals so much about their true spiritual condition.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0No matter how spiritual or unspiritual a person may claim to be, if you have an open, humble attitude toward Jesus, it shows you are closer to and deeper in the kingdom of God than you think.\u00a0 If you have a closed, prideful attitude toward Jesus, it shows that you are much more in the dark spiritually than you think.<\/p>\n

    Jesus, thank You for relentlessly pursuing me with Your love and never giving up on me.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Thank that those others may exclude or reject me, You still welcome me with open arms<\/em>.\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 9:35-41.\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 9:35-38 (NIV)
    \n35\u00a0\u00a0Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
    \n36\u00a0\u00a0“Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”
    \n37\u00a0\u00a0Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
    \n38\u00a0\u00a0Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
    \n\u00a0
    \nOn verses 35-38:\u00a0 When the healed man was thrown out by some Pharisees, Jesus goes out to find him.\u00a0 During this second encounter with Jesus, Jesus teaches the healed man more of who Jesus is, calling himself the Son of Man, and leads the man to saving faith in him.
    \n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31121","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\/31121","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=31121"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31124,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31121\/revisions\/31124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}