Good morning, everyone.
Our verse for today comes from Acts 9:18, “Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized.”
I love a good magician. Along with someone who does great voice impressions, a good magician can entertain me as much and as long as almost anything else. Unfortunately, I have seen very few magicians live and in person. If so, they have usually been just the special entertainment or guest at some larger function or conference. But I do rejoice whenever I stumble across one on television. Now it’s kind of silly to say you have a favorite when you are familiar with only one act, but my favorite is Penn & Teller. Besides their amazing tricks that seem to incorporate so many different levels and types of trickery and sleight of hand, and the fact that only Penn speaks during their routine, they also are known to occasionally explain the trick that they are performing. And since I am always clueless as to how they did it, I love to find out where the “magic” occurred. But their genius is such that the trick they perform and explain turns out to be only a smaller portion of a larger ruse that seemingly has no explanation. And so, instead of thinking you know how they did it, you are still left in the dark as to the real secret. To use Saul’s condition on the road to Damascus, your eyes were opened, but you could not see.
I wonder how many of us walk around each day suffering from this condition, spiritually speaking. We’ve seen a bunch and we know a secret or two, but our spiritual eyes are not in tune with what God would have us be about. We believe His message and understand the basics, but we are still in the dark regarding the weightier matters of His heart and ours. Scripture teaches that sin in your life will prevent you from experiencing much of what God has intended for you. It even says that your relationship with your money and possessions directly affects your relationship with Him. The blind who know they are blind seek a way to attain sight, or else they make a way to manage without. Those who think they see but don’t are in grave danger of much greater calamities, going along without what they think they have. Make sure God has removed the scales from the eyes of your heart so you can see Him and yourself as they both truly are.
As we seek Him today, pray for an awareness of your condition, and ask God to transform you by His grace.
Have a great Thursday.
#4 Rich Holt
Dad of Ripken, Koy, TrishaJean, Samantha, Kakie Holiday and Raleigh
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
