If you're blind, please read this

There is a story in the Bible about a man who was born blind (John 9). One day Jesus happens to be walking by the blind man and decides to heal him of his blindness. The interesting thing to me about the story though is that Jesus makes some mud and rubs it on the man's eyes, then He tells the man to go and wash off his face in pool of Siloam. The pool obviously was not right there because the Bible says that the man went and washed, and came back seeing.

There are plenty of examples in the Bible of Jesus healing people right where they are.
Why not this guy? Why send him with mud on his eyes to some pool?

Why even the need to make mud and rub it on the guys eyes?
There is another story in Luke (Luke 18:35-42) where another blind man is asking Jesus to heal him and Jesus says "What do you want me to do?"
The blind man says, "I want to see!"
Jesus responds, "All right, receive your sight, your faith has healed you."

So why all the drama with the mud and the and making the guy walk to a pool and back to cure his blindness?

Among other reasons, such as Jesus can pretty much decide to heal people how ever He wants to, I believe that making the man "go" somewhere and "do" something in order to receive the gift was something Jesus wanted us to catch.

Often times as Christians, I think we want to just throw up a prayer and ask God to take care of an issue or a problem and we think we have done our job.

We are disturbed by the images of hurricane Katrina, or mudslides in China, or learning of little girls caught up in the sex trade industry or little boys in the slave labor industry and we want to offer up a prayer on their behalf and then sit back in the recliner with our remote and a snack and think that we have done our job.

That cannot be the attitude in which we approach things.

We need to be prayer warriors for sure, but Jesus wants us to "go" and "do" the work that he has equipped us for.

What is it that bothers you? What do you see in this world that disturbs you? What gets your blood boiling?

Whatever that is, don't just pray about it and think that the work is done.

"Go" down to the pool and "do" the work of washing the mud off of your eyes.

How are we going to see healing take place and lives being saved if we have mud in our eyes?

Good News

I had a conversation with a friend the other day that went just like this:

Friend: "Why don't you ever post anything other than your blog with the Christian stuff on Facebook?"

Me: "What am I supposed to post?"

Friend: "I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it, but there is other stuff to talk about too."

Me: "Is there something more important that I should be posting about?"

Friend: "What about world events or politics or where you ate dinner that night?"

Me: "Like I said, is there something more important that I should be posting about?"

Friend: "Not everyone believes in that stuff."

Me: "That's why I post the blog."

Friend: "Most of the people probably never even read it because they know it is the same stuff each time. Has anyone ever told you that they found hope through your post?"

Me: "No, but let me ask you a question now. Have you ever played the lottery?"

Friend: "Sure, a couple times a month"

Me: "Did you win the million dollar jackpot yet?"

Friend: "No"

Me: "Then why keep playing? It's just the same thing every time you play."

Friend: "Right but there is a chance………..wow, walked right into that one."

I post what I post because there is nothing more important than knowing the options for eternity. People don't care what I had for dinner last night, they don't care where I am every 5 minutes. I am just not that interesting of a person.
If I have information that could give someone hope for a better tomorrow and I kept it quiet, then I would be a jerk. I have "Good News", and I just can't keep it to myself.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it this way:
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

……and that's the truth.

It's just one

"….for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." -John 8:44

I think a problem some people have is that they believe in God, and they believe in cute little cherub angelic beings but for whatever reason they don't think Satan is a being that they need to contend with.

The reality is that he is the second most powerful being in the known universe.
And he's crafty.

He doesn't just bombard us with temptation. He chips away at our character with little temptations here and there.

It's just one joint.
It's just one night at a strip club
It's just one…
It's just one…

Satan knows that most of us would never go all in with him, but he also knows that humans have a natural bent towards sin. Which is why you never have to teach your children to do bad things. They just do them.

Satan knows that we are all inclined to head towards sin if it is in small doses.
We go to war with our own character by telling ourselves things like:

"It's not like I'm murdering someone…..it's just one….."
"I'm not hurting anyone else……it's just one…."
"I will make an exception in this case…..it's just one…."

He's crafty.

He makes sin attractive. It looks like a fun slide but it slices you.

Since the creation of the world, sin has had consequences. It always will.
Don't be deceived into thinking, "It's just one".

Everything starts with one. That is why some companies frame their first dollar from their first sale. That is where it starts. One. And it only goes up from there.

Train yourself to avoid the "one" and enjoy being consequence free!