January 30, 2025 | Be God's Family
Sight for the Physically & Spiritually Blind
Scripture: Matthew 9:27-34(NIV)
27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
28 When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
“Yes, Lord,” they replied.
29 Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; 30 and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” 31 But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.
32 While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. 33 And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
34 But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
Devotional
The Pharisees were on high alert when it came to Jesus. In Matthew 9 alone, Jesus forgave and healed a paralyzed man, ate a meal with Roman-loving tax collectors and spiritually unclean sinners, healed a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, and raised the daughter of the synagogue leader from the dead. Now Jesus enabled two blind men to see and a mute man to talk.
The response of the Pharisees? “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
This goes to the heart of Jesus’ identity. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis said, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
The Pharisees made their choice. They looked at the words and actions of Jesus and concluded that He was a demon. Others admitted that Jesus was a good guy, but definitely not God in the flesh. Still others stepped away from their tax collector’s booths, leaving their lucrative careers to follow Him to the ends of the earth.
Who do you say Jesus is?
Poem
Who
Psalm 146
Who is my only hope?
Who solely fully knows me?
Who cares with Father-love?
Who sacrificing shows me?
Who heals my spirit torn?
Who listens to my calling?
Who kisses back my tears?
Who catches me when falling?
Who paves and guides my way?
Who reins me in when failing?
Who searches me when lost?
Who guards against sin’s railing?
Who shares my joy, delights?
Who trains me up, full able?
Who opens wide my heart?
Who welcomes me at table?
Whose ways are always good?
Who fills my cup, refreshing?
Who changes orphan state?
Who gives me regal blessing?
