When you hear what I say,
You will not understand.
When you see what I do,
You will not comprehend.
For the hearts of these people are hardened,
And their ears cannot hear,
And they have closed their eyes—
So their eyes cannot see,
And their ears cannot hear,
And their hearts cannot understand,
And they cannot turn to Me and let Me heal them.
The thing that struck me as I read this was that Jesus is essentially saying it takes more than raw intellect to understand the will of God. Some of us come from Christian heritages that have placed a lot of emphasis upon rationality and thinking skills—perhaps too much, in fact. Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not advocating that we embrace irrationality as an alternative…but I am saying that we need to hear the words of Isaiah and Jesus. The people they spoke about hear the voice of God. They saw the actions of God. In the case of the first century people, they actually saw God enfleshed as a human being—and yet they still did not understand! They saw Him…but they didn’t see Him. They saw only what they wanted to see, and blinded themselves to reality. (Isaiah said “they have closed their eyes”)
This got me to wondering, “How often do I ‘close my eyes’ to what is right in front of me?” How much of God’s will for my life have I failed to understand, not because I haven’t read the Bible, or studied Greek & Hebrew, or read great theologians…but simply because my heart is hardened and I don’t WANT to understand? I suspect that has been the case quite often. I’m struggling to improve the situation every day, but it’s rather difficult to make a blind man see. It requires an act of God. I ask you to pray for me to embrace that action of God in my life…and I will do the same for you; And together, perhaps we will finally be able to turn and let Him heal us.
-- Justin
For Everyone: Give Me Your Eyes video
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