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One of my favorite Bible stories is when Jesus healed a blind man in John 9. In it, Jesus and his disciples walked by a man who had been blind from birth. The disciples asked Jesus an important question for their day in age — “Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered with, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” 

After this interaction, Jesus made some mud with his saliva, put in on the blind man’s eyes, and told him to go wash it off in a nearby pool. The man did as Jesus had told him. When he came out of the water, he could see for the first time in his life!

It’s a wonderful story of healing, of the power of the God of the Bible, of the love and grace of Jesus, and of the fullness of life being restored. It’s also a beautiful story God’s willingness to employ his creative genius to provide a solution to an impossible problem. 

You may be wondering how a story about Jesus healing a blind man is a story about the God’s ability to solve insurmountable problems creatively. If you are, you are asking a great question. Historic and biblically based Christian teaching answers that question for us in two ways. 

First, it tells us that Jesus is God in the flesh, meaning that he is both God and man – 100% God and 100% man – in the same person. He’s unique. There was no one like him before him and there will never be anyone like him again. Therefore, when Jesus fixes a problem, God fixes it. 

Second, biblical teaching is clear that God created all that there is. Genesis, the first book of the Bible, begins with the statement, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” John introduced his version of Jesus’s life story with a similar proclamation, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” God is a creator. He is, in fact, the creator of all things. 

So, when Jesus healed the blind man, he created a solution to an impossible problem. There was no hope for the man to receive his sight outside of the miraculous and creative work of Jesus. This is what Jesus does. He graciously fixes the world’s problems in his power to recreate all things in the same way he created them at the beginning. He does it in your life, and he does it in my life. The challenge for us is to trust him enough to allow him to do it. If we do, we will see the works of God displayed in us.  

** This post originally appeared in the Wednesday, March 3 edition of The Chester News and Reporter of Chester, SC.

In his first post of the new year on the seventeen82.com blog titled, “Growing as a Christian,” Pastor James McManus wrote about the importance of growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ from 2 Peter 3. His post encouraged my heart and I trust that it will encourage yours should you read it. 

If you will allow it, I would like to jump on the James Train in this post and draw our attention to the beginning thirteen verses of 2 Peter 3 where Peter gives us a three-fold philosophy for living faithful lives in light of the impending return of Christ.

Let me set the stage. 

By the time we get to the beginning of 2 Peter 3, the Apostle has written (for the better part of two letters) to a group of congregations full of Christians and Christian families who have been “grieved by various trials” (1 Peter 1:6). They were marginalized by their society, led astray by religious leaders they trusted, and exiled from their families for their commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. They were in a tight spot. 

Knowing this (because he, himself, faced persecution in Rome), Peter sought to stir up their “sincere minds by way of reminder” (2 Peter 3:1). He reminded them first of the words and “predictions of the holy prophets” as well as “the commandments of the Lord and Savior through their apostles” (2 Peter 3:2), for they spoke God’s inspired word (2 Peter 1:21). He reminded them second that the prophets and apostles predicted that scoffers and false teachers would rise up in the last days following their own sinful desires and would try to convince others to follow them in their pursuit of godlessness (2 Peter 2:1-3; 3:3). He reminded them lastly that their only hope rests in the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel as it is revealed to them in the words of the apostles and prophets. 

After stoking the fire of their memories, Peter focused on one particular promise they found in the Scriptures — Christ Jesus will return. 

Central to understanding Peter’s message to his beloved congregations is the concept of the last days. For him, the last days is the time between Jesus’s ascension into Heaven and his subsequent return when he will completely establish his eternal kingdom after the heavens and the earth have been made new. This means that the present era has a beginning (the Day of Pentecost) and an end (Christ’s return), and the Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee (Eph. 1:13-14) that it will all come to be as he testifies to our spirits of the reality of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and eventual return. Specifically in 2 Peter 3, Peter grounds his confidence in Christ’s return in the fact that Jesus came, lived, died, rose, and ascended in the exact way the prophets had predicted. Therefore, he and his readers could be certain that the predictions of Christ’s return would in fact come true in due time. 

Armed with this faith-filled confidence, they could withstand the pressure of the scoffers and endure the hardships they faced from their persecutors. All they had to do was to wait patiently on the Lord to fulfill his promises, trust him with their lives, and prepare themselves to welcome him and his eternal kingdom. 

Now, at first sight this instruction from Peter appears too ethereal, but it is imminently practical. Patiently waiting on the Lord’s return gives purpose, meaning, and direction to our lives. If we know that there is a definite end with reward for those who remain faithful to Christ and punishment for those who do not, then the decisions we make and the actions we take are eternally consequential for us. The conviction that Christ will return shapes our lives as we prepare ourselves for his return, a return that will come like a thief in the night (2 Peter 3:10). Because of this reality, waiting patiently on the Lord, trusting him with our lives, and preparing ourselves for his return are the most practical things to which followers of Christ can devote themselves. 

As I conclude, I will draw your attention back to the opening paragraphs of this post where I said that Peter gives us a three-fold philosophy for living lives of faith in light of Christ’s return. Here is that philosophy, and I commend it to you.

1. Remember the words and promises of God found in the Scriptures (2 Peter 3:1-2).
2. Wait patiently on Christ’s return for it is sure to come in the Lord’s perfect time (2 Peter 3:8-10).
3. Prepare yourselves for Christ’s return because it is imminent and could come at any moment (2 Peter 3:11-13). 

May God bless you richly in his grace as you pursue him and elevate others to his glory as you wait for his certain return. 

My beloved NC State Wolfpack beat Wake Forest Saturday night in thrilling fashion. After the game, running back Ricky Person, Jr said, regarding his breakout performance, “I’m speechless, honestly. I’ve battled through a lot of injuries throughout my career. I just kept faith in God, my teammates encouraged me on a daily basis, everyone. It was a long time coming for this moment…”

In a similar vein, Sunday’s winner of the 2020 US Open Golf tournament, Bryson DeChambeau, recently explained his belief in his new training regimen which was designed to drastically increase his body mass in an interview published in Golf Digest.

Based on their words, both of these athletes properly understand the concept of faith. They both know that faith, by definition, always has an object. It is “in” something or someone. Person stated it directly Saturday night when he said that he “kept faith in God.” His faith is in God. It wasn’t his faith alone that carried him through the obstacles. It wasn’t his faith alone that overcame the injuries to his hamstring and Achilles tendon. It was God that did it. His faith attached him to God and enabled him to rest in God’s strength while working tirelessly to get back to the playing field. The same is true for DeChambeau, except his faith wasn’t in God but in his process and training. 

The Bible talks about faith in the exact same way. Biblical faith is grounded firmly in the Lord Jesus Christ, who famously told Martha, at the tomb of her brother Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26). He gave her hope in the midst of her grief. Later, the Apostle Paul claimed the same hope for himself through faith as he testified that he lived his life “by faith in the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20) 

In both of these instances, faith was the conduit through which God’s power and hope ran to the individuals. Let me use an example to explain. 

You have power at your house. You use it all the time. You heat water with it. You cook with it. You wash clothes with it. You turn lights on at night with it. You watch TV with it. You surf the internet because of it. You also know that the lines that bring that power to your house are not the power source. It comes from somewhere else. 

The same is true for faith. Faith functions as the power lines do in that it is the way you and I receive the power, hope, blessing, grace, and mercy of God in our lives. God is the source of all things and he gives them to us by faith. 

So, let me encourage you to exercise your faith in the good and gracious God of the Bible so you may receive his life and his power each and every day. 

This post originally appeared in the Wednesday, September 23, 2020 edition of the Chester News and Reporter of Chester, SC.