Daily Bread - 05/25/07

John 9:35 - Jesus heard that they threw him out and finding him, He said to him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

Here is yet another example of a person being healed where it had nothing to do with the individual's faith. In fact, this time Jesus did not even ask the person if they wanted to be healed. Just as the crippled man who laid at the pool of Bethesda in John 5, this man had no idea who Jesus was. When Jesus asked him if He believed in the Son of man he said, "who is he sir that I may believe in Him?"

John does not use the Greek noun for faith (pistin) in his Gospel. Instead he uses the word for believe (pisteuw). In fact, of the 248 occurrences of this word in the New Testament it is found 96 times in the Gospel of John. We learn in the Gospel of John that all one has to do is simply believe and they are given authority to be sons of God (John 1:12). Therefore, by believing, every dimension of grace is supplied to the believer to function in the benefits and blessings of the Kingdom of God (John 1:16; John 17:22).

In the Bible, to believe means to be convinced of something that is told you (John 2:11; Matthew 27:42). It carries the meaning of obeying what was spoken (Matthew 21:32; Acts 8:12; 1 John 4:1). It also means to entrust yourself to the care of God (Luke 16:11; John 2:24; Mark 16:13; Acts 27:25). It conveys the meaning of confidence in God wherein we are convinced that God will do what He has said He will do (John 14:1; Mark 5:36; Luke 8:50; 2 Corinthians 4:13).

The blind man shows us how easy it is to believe. He simply responded to Jesus by saying, "I believe" and then fell down and worshipped Jesus. Salvation comes to us in the same way. It is by the faith of Jesus at work in our life because we were simply willing to believe what God said in His word. As we obey His word (no matter how difficult things become) and do whatever God asks us to do, our faith matures and becomes strong insomuch that whatever we ask God He will do (John 15:16, 14:13-14, 16:23). The disciples show us an amazing example of this. Although they believed and were obeying the word of the Lord, they found a limitation to their faith. They were unable to cast a demon out of a young boy. When they asked Jesus why they were unable to cast out the demon, He told them because of their unbelief (Matthew 17:20). Thus, we are able to witness how that God's saints can believe in some areas but find themselves in unbelief in other areas. Therefore, the cry of this boy's father must also be the cry of our hearts, "Lord I believe; help thou my unbelief" (Mark 9:24).

Be blessed!

Pastor Mark Spitsbergen
abidingplace.org