Transforming Power of Jesus

“At one time we were in darkness, but now we have the light of the Lord and can walk as children of light, for the fruit of light, is found in all that is good, right and true.”

Eph 5:8-9

Without Jesus we are blind to truth.  That is why Jesus came, that we who were blind and in sin, may be forgiven and come to know our Creator, where He transforms us from sinner to saint.

It is for that reason that Jesus told us in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me would not walk in darkness but have the light of life.”   The Apostle Paul describes our journey of faith  this way in Ephesians 5:8-9, “at one time we were in darkness, but now we have the light of the Lord and can walk as children of light, for the fruit of light, is found in all that is good, right and true.”

In Mark 8:22-26, we see a blind man receive his sight through the compassion and power of Jesus.  While the miracle certainly demonstrates to us that Jesus is indeed the Son of God and Savior of the world, it also shows us some things that are true about all of us as we come to Him.

First we notice in Mark 8:22 that this blind man needed others to bring him to Jesus.  This is a basic truth that we see again and again in the Bible.  God uses others to bring us to Him.  Here the text tells us that “some people brought to Jesus a blind man and begged on the blind man’s behalf for Jesus to touch and heal him.”

God calls others to reach others with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  That is the way God works, He uses other people to reach us and then uses us to reach others.  It is within God’s design to use people to reach out to those who need Him and then use those who have come to Him to reach a lost world without Him.

A second truth we see in this miracle is that when Jesus restores the man's sight, Jesus inserts time and process around the healing.  Mark 8:23 tells us that “Jesus took the man by the hand and led him outside the village.” In vs. 23-24 after “spitting on his eyes,” the man received only partial sight.  In vs. 25, we see how Jesus then “laid hands on him” a second time, where the man’s sight is fully restored.

When we come to Christ, the Bible teaches us are then born again and given new life, where God’s Holy Spirit begins a new work in us.  With this new birth a process begins, where we go from loving darkness to increasingly alive to the good things of God.  Though we begin as “babes” in Christ, through what the Bible describes as sanctification, we are changed over time and grow into maturity.  God inserts time and process and delivers us from our addictions, sinful habits, worries and fears and He does this over time.

Finally we see in Mark 8:26 how Jesus sends the man home with a curious command, “do not even enter the village.”  Though the text doesn’t tell us why Jesus gave this man that command, we do know this, Jesus was commanding him to not go back the way He came.  One application we can discover here is this:  after we have been saved from sin and ignorance, God calls us to live a new life.  This means we are not to return to the things that had contributed to our blindness and ignorance in the past.

God is faithful and good to open our eyes, forgive our sins, and give us a new life so that now through Jesus we who have been called out of "darkness into His marvelous light," can declare the "excellencies of His majesty" to a lost and dying world.  (I Peter 2:12)