LENT • 4

How Good Is Your Eyesight?

SONGS FOR PRAYER

reading for: Tuesday Night, 14 MArch

John 9:1-41

To Believe in Jesus is to truly be able to See

  • READ

    The presence of evil and injustice in this world, often raises many questions for people, especially Christians. When we witness moral evil in the world, like the Russian-Ukraine war, the gruesome murder of Hong Kong model Abby Choi, the socio-political or economic injustices or when we hear of natural evil like earthquakes, floods, famine and drought, pandemics, diseases and ultimately death, we ask, “Who is responsible for this? Is one person more sinful than another and that’s why they are suffering greater evil? How can God be good if evil exists? Does the existence of evil mean that God doesn’t care or has abandoned us?”

    The Scriptures reveal that at Creation, everything that God made was good. That when Adam and Eve chose to live independently of God by eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge outside of God’s timing and permission, evil entered the world. So evil is a creation of Man who acts upon the deceptive suggestion of Satan. Therefore, evil enters the world through Man’s deliberate choice and through his sin and rebellion against God (Gen 1 – 3). The rest of the Bible describes God’s plan of salvation, to redeem mankind and all fallen Creation. God does this through Abraham and his descendants - a people and nation who belong to Him (Israelites/Jews), to participate in His redemption project for all humankind. We read about this from Genesis 12 onwards and journey through the Old Testament, learning about how well (or badly) God’s people perform in their part of this project. This salvation project ultimately points and builds towards its highest and most powerful, Jesus of Nazareth, God’s only Son in the New Testament. So, God’s salvation project finds its climax in the coming, life and death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. After His ascension, God pours out His Holy Spirit at Pentecost and now all non-Jews (gentiles like us) can participate in God’s saving project, until Christ returns. The Early Church and the Church of Christ for the last 2000 years attests to this. And it is in the light of God’s Grand Story that we can properly reflect and make sense of evil in the world, and on the healing of the blind man in John 9.

    Firstly, John 9 does not say that everything that happens to us, or that every situation or circumstance in life, reveals God’s works, only that in this particular blind man, God’s work—God’s providence and purposes are revealed. And if we believe what the Scriptures show about God’s salvation project and that through Jesus, God is actively working this out, we can properly understand that when Jesus says, “he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (v. 3). Here, Jesus is not saying that God deliberately brought blindness upon this man, but that God is going to reveal His salvation project and specifically, reveal Jesus Himself as the ultimate One through whom God is working through to effect his salvation. Jesus not only never explains why this individual was born blind, for those around him to assume the man’s blindness must in some way be due to his own sin or someone else’s sin is to be presumptuous and ‘blind’ to the unfolding purposes of God.

    Secondly, only in recognising who Jesus is, can we begin to see and understand this invisible salvation project of God. All the characters in the story, the neighbours, the Pharisees, the blind man’s parents are unable to see in this healing that “God does provide.” Not even the blind man himself understands what has happened to him. Only after Jesus finds him again and invites him to believe in Him, does the healed man truly “see.” Only after he believes, are his spiritual eyes fully open and he is able to worship the one who is truly from God (v. 38). Jesus has healed him of far more than just his physical blindness.

    Lastly there is great tragic irony in John’s story - that the blind man receives his sight, but everyone else in the story loses theirs. Even the Pharisees, who supposedly know their scriptures inside-out, they cannot see their calling and privileged role in God’s greater saving purposes. Sadly, it’s not their physical vision they lose but their capacity to believe and understand what they have witnessed.

  • REFLECT

    As we journey towards Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, can you see God’s saving love in Jesus’ death and resurrection? How is Jesus inviting you to participate in God’s Saving Project? What is the Holy Spirit prompting you to let go of or to pick up in order to grow one step deeper your faith in Jesus?

reading for: Wednesday Night, 15 march

1 Samuel 16:1-13

God Sees beyond Outward Appearances to the Heart

  • READ

    Earlier in the book, God directs, the prophet Samuel to anoint Saul as Israel’s first king when the people ask to be ruled by a king, just like the other nations are. We learn that Saul is the tallest, most handsome man in all Israel (1 Sam. 9:2). When Samuel eventually presents Saul to the people as the new ruler, he has all the looks and stature that fit with the appearance of a successful leader.

    “Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? There is none like him among all the people.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!” (1 Sam.10:24).

    Then the time comes for Samuel to anoint Saul’s successor. This time it seems, God and Samuel see things very differently. For one, Samuel cannot fully understand why God has rejected Saul and grieves over him.

    For another, God tells Samuel, I have provided for myself a king among his (Jesse’s) sons.” (1 Sam. 16:1) but Samuel trusts his own eyes and also the visual appeal of beauty and stature as identifying qualities for a new king (v. 6). God scolds Samuel and in this we see the difference between how God and human beings see things. “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (v. 7), God explains to the spiritually blind prophet. Indeed, God has seen and chosen one whom Samuel cannot see at all, the shepherding son who remains out in the field.

    Strangely enough, the narrator again focuses on the outward appearance of David.  He is described as “ruddy and good-looking, with beautiful eyes (v. 12). Does it mean that the prophet has made an error in judgement again? Or does physical appearance have anything to do with the heart the person?

  • REFLECT

    In the New Testament book of Acts, God calls David a ‘man after his own heart.  “22 And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ (Acts 13:22)

    What was God looking for, that he found in David? What made David a man after God’s heart? How my we also be men and women after God’s heart?

reading for: Thursday Night, 16 mARCH

Ephesians 5:8-14

Walking in the Light of God

  • READ

    In Ephesians 5:1–7 the Apostle Paul, makes a strong call to the Ephesian church, and to all Christians to be “imitators of God.” This means that we are not to be disobedient children who walk in darkness but to be God’s children of light.

    The basis of this call is that God has rescued us out of darkness and chosen us to be light: “now in the Lord you are light” (v. 8). In this verse we hear echoes of Jesus’ words to his disciples in John 15:16, You did not choose me but I chose you” as well as his words in Matt. 5:14, where Jesus, in his sermon on the Mount says, “You are the light of the world”. God has done something for us. God Himself has taken the initiative. Here in this passage, in Ephesians, Paul makes the same declaration. God has chosen us to be light in this world.

    Second, we are called to choose to live in the life God has made possible. God in his sovereign freedom has chosen us and in our freedom, we get to choose God in response. Meaning, we are free to choose to live as children of light.

    What does it mean for us to bear “the fruit of the light” (v. 9)? It is by discerning what is “good and right and true” (v. 9) and in try to “discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” (v.10)

    The Apostle Paul does not stop here, but goes on to make two more statements regarding the choice we are to make in living out our new identity as God’s children. As a companion to discerning what is “good and right and true” we are called to resist the works of darkness, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.” (v.11)

    Finally, the Apostle Paul pushes the matter to a strong high point by calling on believers to expose the works of darkness. We are not to be reluctant to engage this aspect of living as children of light. Jesus exposed sin in order to bring healing and restoration to God’s holy people. As His servants in the world, we need to continue in his work, with the right spirit and motives. Then, we are truly living as his children, his representatives in the world.

  • REFLECT

    How often do you correct a brother or sister out of love for him or her? Consider how you might do this in obedience to Christ and out of authentic love for one another.

reading for: Friday Night, 17 MARCH

Psalm 23

To Follow Is to See and experience God’s providing and protecting love

  • READ

    Psalm 23 is one of the best known and best loved of the Psalms. Jews and Christians throughout the centuries have found such encouragement from these six short verses.

    The psalm is a song of trust and confidence and sung from the point of view of a deliverance already secured. In each of the six verses, we see the understanding of the relationship between God and man is increasingly deepened.

    The first three verses of the psalm speak of God’s provision, abundance, and restoration and, after a significant shift in verse four, the theme returns in the final verses of the psalm. The first verse, introduces the Psalmist’s experience of God as someone who cares and provides. Here God is no distant, impersonal force, but one who is known as a shepherd. God’s essential character of love and His act of caring cannot be separated. God is one who personally and lovingly provides and his sheep lack nothing. 

    While verse 1 establishes that under the care of God we shall be free from any lack, verse 2 declares that a richer, deeper experience is to be experienced under God’s care. Lying down in lush fields in near refreshing streams suggests an abundant life. God is one who provides not just sparingly but in great in abundance.

    The third verse, points to God’s care of the person’s inner life. The care of the soul and its restoration is God’s concern. To restore the soul is to refresh it and to revive it, and also allows for divine guidance in the paths of righteousness. We live not simply to live, but to pursue the appropriate relationship with God. Life with God is a journey with the God who revitalises.

    The first part of the fourth verse reveals the psalmist’s immediate context. His life is a journey through some lonesome lowland where death overshadows life’s rich possibilities. Evil is named explicitly as the source of his fear and he acknowledges the reality of suffering in the presence of evil. However, his fear does not overwhelm him because of the personal presence of a loving Shepherd in the second part of the verse. Not only is the shepherd with the psalmist, but the shepherd’s care is now concretized in the symbols of the rod and the staff. The rod and the staff were not only the tools of the shepherd; they were the concrete manifestations of God’s protection over him.

    The fifth verse, recalls the idea of abundance mentioned in the second verse. Here, however, the abundance is manifested in the presence of danger which cannot touch him.

    The sixth and final verse, declares that the theme of restoration is no longer a goal and righteousness no longer a quest ahead. Instead of being guided in the ways of justice, the writer will always be followed by goodness and mercy. His restored soul has found a permanent resting place in God’s presence.

  • REFLECT

    In your Life Groups, share how the Lord has been your Shepherd. Celebrate with prayers of thanksgiving over one another.

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