Are we spiritually blind? Are there certain things that we won’t be able to get from God, because we cannot see it? Are there certain things that we cannot understand because we are spiritually blind? If we don’t see something clearly then we will never be able to understand it. If we can’t see with precision, then we will not receive it. The biggest problem that we are experiencing in our churches today is spiritual blindness. It is specifically in the area of being blind to what Christ has done for us. When we are spiritually blind to what Jesus Christ has already done for us, then we will always be trying to get something that is already ours. We will always try to make something happen, that has already happened. I said this before, spiritual blindness is the biggest problem affecting the body of Christ (Church) because they refuse to acknowledge what Christ has already done.

Let’s begin this study with reading 1 John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” This Scripture begins with, “But if we walk in the light….” Think about this now, if we have a “performance based mind set,” or a “work-based mindset,” then when we read this Scripture we would assume it has to do with our behavior. “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light…the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us….” If we have this performance based mindset, then naturally when we read this, we would assume that it has to do with how our life measures up with that of God. This may be a shock to you, but this Scripture is not referring to or is it talking about how we walk, but it does refer to where we walk. To say it is our behavior, this of course would not make sense, because if we would behave ourselves just like Jesus behaved Himself then “the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all of our sins” wouldn’t be of value to us because we would be perfect just like Jesus. Seeing this then, God cannot be talking about behavior here. If it were to be true that our behavior matters, then our behavior would constitute our decision to be in light or darkness. If we behave right, then we would walk in the light, but if we behave wrong, then we would walk in the darkness and we would find ourselves jumping from one to the other, based upon our behavior. Therefore, this would mean that the only way for us to remain in the light, we would have to be without sin. I believe, that God is not talking about this here. This Scripture is talking about the realm that we are in as a believer, not the way we perform. We are in the light because we have been cleansed of all of our sins. If we are believers, we walk in the light (we walk where God is), we are in Christ Jesus and He is in us. We are in the kingdom of light, because we are in Christ.

What do we have to do to be in the light? We have to be in Christ! What do we have to do to be in Christ? We must be “Born Again!” If we are born again (making Jesus our Lord and Savior and asking Him to come into our hearts), we are in the light.

If we are in Christ, then we are in the kingdom of light, but if our eyes are blinded to the Gospel, then we would stumble around unsure of our location and because of the darkness we would be unable to find our way. We are in Christ, therefore, we need to think about this for a moment, what if we were physically blind, we could go into a room with lots of lights shining, but we would never know that the room was lighted. it is the same with us being Christians , we are born again and we become in Christ, therefore, we are in the light, but if we are spiritually blind, we don’t even know we are in the light. We are blind to our righteousness, we are blind to our redemption, we are blind to the blessings of God, and we are blind to the things that have been made available to us. Because we are in Christ and because we don’t know it (we can’t see properly), and because we are spiritually blind, we are struggling to get the things of God. We are trying to get things that we already have and we are still trying to get God to do something that He has already done, this is what it means to be spiritually blind.

We can be born again, we can be in Christ and we can be a Christian, but we can still be spiritually blind to the grace that Jesus has already made available to us. We will still go out and do a lot of religious activities to get things that are already ours, because we just can’t see what has already been done for us. Turn to Isaiah 61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;” Now let’s take a look at Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me  to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;” These two Scriptures say basically the same thing, except in Isaiah, God talks about the opening of the prison and in Luke, Jesus talks about recovery of sight to blind. It is interesting to note that in Isaiah and in Luke, the phrases are the same except for the last parts, in Isaiah, it says, “opening of the prison to them that are bound” and in Luke’s gospel it says, “the recovering of the sight of the blind.” What is happening here? In Hebrew, “the opening of prison,” this means the opening of the eyes. Both verses are not to much different, because they are both talking of the opening of the eyes, so that we can see something the we could not see. Opening our eyes will keep us from captivity. Jesus came to release us from captivity of the law that declares us unrighteous, unacceptable to God and to free us from our “Performance Based Religion.”

In order for us to be free from this “Performance Based Religion,” we have to have our eyes open to what has already taken place. The “Recovery of Sight of the Blind,” was not for Jesus to heal people in the natural, it was for Him to open our eyes to the gospel of grace, so we can be delivered from the captivity of the law, so that we will stop going around to get God to do something that He has already done. Jesus said, that He has to get our eyes open to see what He has already done, if He don’t, then we won’t see it with clarity, and we will stay in bondage to the law.

Turn to 2 Kings 6:14-17, “Therefore he sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city. And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”  And Elisha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” The servant only saw the army that was around them and he was fearful. He couldn’t see that he had nothing to worry about. The servant of Elisha could only see what was right in front of him, he was blind to what Elisha could see. Elisha prayed to God for the servant’s eyes to be opened and the Lord opened his eyes and he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire sent by God to protect Elisha. We have to be careful that we do not call things as we see them in the natural. We see our bills piling up, the bank account with a zero balance, we feel the pain in our bodies, and we witness the hurricanes, earthquakes, and forest fires, but we are only seeing these things with our natural sight, not even realizing what God has already done. Jesus has to open our eyes for us to see what He has already done for us. If we are spiritually blind, then we will see the temporal things that are around us, but when the blindness is lifted, we will see eternal things all around us. Temporary reality is what we see right now, but when we have clarity, we will see beyond our natural sight into the supernatural and know that there is nothing to worry about. Our temporary reality says, there is the Coronavirus that is threatening all humans and killing them, but the eternal reality says, that it won’t come near us and those that have contracted it are already healed. Our temporary reality says, there is much lack in the world, but eternal reality says, God supplies all of our needs according to His riches in glory. God wants to take us away from the temporary and keep us in the eternal. He is healing us of our blindness and He is making it possible for us to see beyond our situations that we are facing and this makes it possible for us to see with clarity what He has already done. This is so powerful for us to know, because we can now speak to the devil and tell him that we no longer are afraid of what he throws at us because we now can see with clarity his craftiness and that it is only temporary. God has opened our eyes and we can see into the eternal and we already know what Christ Jesus has done for us. There is exceedingly great power that has been given to us, and we can look around us and see the help that God has given us. Turn to Ephesians 1:16-21, “do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,  the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,  and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power  which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,  far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.” All of this happens when our eyes are “enlightened.” We will be able to recognize things that we could not see before. The devil needs to be careful about messing with us, because there are things that we can see now that we couldn’t see before, that is going to change the outcome of the battle that he wages against us. We are going to walk in a game changer for sure.

The best explanation from people today is that God is to blame for all the bad things that are happening. After all He allows it. The reason people want to blame God, is because they only can see with their natural sight what is there before them. This needs to change! What can we do to change it? How can we cooperate with God in all of this? The first thing that must be done to change things, is to get ourselves into the Word of God, and this will bring us clarity. A lot of us are running around with what Creflo Dollar likes to call, “Word Deficit.” We allow our emotions to control us more than we allow the Word to control us. You see, when we are in Word Deficit, we stay blinded to the truth. We can’t see because of the deficit. Listen to me! The first thing that must be done is to read the Word of God. We must rededicate ourselves to reading the Bible, meditating on the Bible’s words, and chewing upon them until we can get these words into our hearts. We need to make this a priority! Why am I stressing this? It must be done so that we can see things that we could not see before. We must be able to see with clarity, precision, understanding, and exactness. The primary way God speaks to us is through His Word. Turn to Psalms 119:130, “The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.” The entrance of God’s Word is guaranteed to bring us clarity, precision, and understanding. Take a look at what the New Living Translation says, “The teaching of your word gives light, so even the simple can understand.” My friends, it all starts with the Word, it has nothing to do with how we view things in the natural. It all starts with the Word, because the Word of God may contradict what we see. We must make a commitment to get into the Word, this means that we need to learn how to read it and understand it. We have to boldly go to the Father and ask Him to give us spiritual wisdom and insight so that we might grow in the knowledge of God. Turn to Ephesians 1:17-20, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,  the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,  and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power  which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,“

Turn to Acts 26:18, “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me” What is the first thing that we must have? We must have our eyes opened! If our eyes are opened, then we are turned from darkness or spiritual blindness, to seeing clearly and we go from the power of Satan to being under God. We are set apart through faith. There are some things that the enemy can do when our eyes are shut, we are blinded to the works of Christ because the only thing that we see is what the devil and the world shows us. The only sight we have is filtered through the views of the world. If we make a mistake of coming up with an educated world view and not comparing to the Word of God, we will still be blinded to the truth about everything. We must let God open our eyes so that we are delivered from darkness and the power of Satan and then when are eyes are opened, we can receive from God. We cannot receive from God when we are spiritually blind, in darkness, and we are under the power of Satan.

Did you know that the devil is on the loose? Satan’s main power is “Deception!” The devil will speak suggestions to our minds that contradict the Word of God, but because we are blinded and deaf we will see it as truth. We will accept it as part of the world’s view and our acceptance will be shared with others and before you know it we will become a group of people believing something that is not true. Let me give you an example that is happening today, the devil had suggested to someone that planned parenthood is ok. Now many woman are getting pregnant and having abortions. Is it right to kill babies that are created by God? No, therefore planned parenthood is a demonic stronghold that needs to be put down. There are groups out there in the world today that say it is ok. Did you know the devil only wants to kill children because God has instilled a powerful anointing in the children that are being born. The more he can wipe out, the less he has to deal with when his time grows short. God is going to change this. Our eyes need to be opened!

We are in the middle of the power of God, but many of us cannot see it. We are in the middle of the truth, but we are not able to receive it. Why? We are blind, living in darkness, and under the power of Satan. We can’t receive the works of Jesus Christ. When we are delivered from this, we will be forgiven of our sins, but when we are blind, we won’t be forgiven. We will go through life thinking that we have to do a dog and pony show for God asking Him to forgive us every time that we sin, and we will never know that Jesus already paid the ransom for our sins. When we are blind, we will continue doing religious activities to get forgiveness of our sins, every time we seem to mess up, not knowing that we are already cleansed by the blood of Jesus. When we are not blind, we can receive forgiveness of our sins and when we are seeing clearly, we can receive the inheritance that we are sanctified through Jesus. There are so many people in the world today that are still praying to get God to do what He has already done. There are so many people that are fasting and praying religiously, when God has already healed them. There are so many people that are trying to get Jesus to do things that He has already finished, because they are spiritually blind, but be of good cheer, clarity is coming to us.

What are we supposed to do? A lot of times we will watch someone else and then we will aspire to be what we see them do, this is because we are not hearing the Sprit of God as He tells us what we are to do. If we listen to the Holy Spirit then we will see with clarity and precision what He wants us to do. Everyone is hungry for the things of God, the Holy Spirit will direct us to that place. Turn to Psalms 37:23-25, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the Lord upholds him with His hand.  I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread.” We are directed by God each day, and when we stumble, God will extend His hand to us and pick us up. He will always hold our hand, never once abandoning us and forever feeding us with His Word. We will get to the place where God wants us to be.

Our steps are ordered and with clarity we will be able to walk safely in them. Look at this, turn to Jeremiah 10:23, “O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.” It is not in mankind that directs our steps, it is not within us to direct our own steps, we cannot take credit, this is what God says. Everyone of us have an expected end. We all have a designated end of our life. We are not a mistake. We were put here for a reason. We may have had to go through some amount of tribulation, but we are where we are because God directed us to it. If God didn’t want us where we are, we would not have gotten to this point. We are where we are because of Him and there is still an expected end. Turn with me to Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Now look at this, turn to Proverbs 16:9, let’s read this from the New Living Translation, “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” We can make our plans for our lives in advance, but God always directs where we are going. We have to stop wasting time and let God’s plan blossom inside of us. We can plan things our way, but in the long run, we will end up doing God’s plan and doing it His way.

God wants to give us clarity. No more should we wonder what we are to do and where we are to go. God wants us to have a a clear understanding. If we think we are failures then God can’t use us, this is a lie from Satan. Take a look at what God used. Let’s look at Moses, he killed another man and God still used him to lead the Israelites out from under the Egyptian rule. Take a look at David, he had adultery with another man’s wife, had the woman’s husband killed, and God still used him. Look at Saul a Pharisee, he had Cristian followers tortured and imprisoned and God still used him to deliver the Gospel message to the Gentiles. God can use anyone that He wants to use. Everyone of us that is called is unprepared, but you know what, God prepares us for what He needs us to do. Are any of us ready to do God’s bidding? No, none of us are ready. Turn to Isaiah 30:21, and again lets read this from the New Living Translation, “Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, “This is the way you should go,” whether to the right or to the left.” Our God is committed to providing guidance, if we will just believe and trust Him. There is a place for our lives. There is a path that we must follow. There is a ministry that we must complete, if we will just trust God’s guidance then we will not miss it.

We must trust in the Lord! When we do, we will find that there will be no one else that we can trust. To trust Him means that we have a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, and strength of our God to get us to where we are supposed to be. Look at what Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;  In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” How are we to trust? The Bible is clear on this, trust Him with all our hearts. What are we not to do? We are not to lean on our own understanding. What happens when we do as He says? He directs our path. We will be at the expected place, and we will fulfill what God wants us to do.

We need to stop saying that we don’t know how! We must declare that there is an expected end for us. We must declare that the Lord directs our steps. We need to say to Jesus, “Where You lead Lord, I will follow.” We must acknowledge God because when we do, He will direct our path. We must trust God because He has the better plan for us. But sadly, we are stubborn people, and we want to do things our own way. We want God to come along with us and we want to be in the driver’s seat instead of letting God drive us. We think up our plan, then we want God to anoint our plan, when in fact we should be getting all of our planning from Him, which He has already anointed.

We musst be able to see clearly and we known that we know that God is driving the vehicle and not us. He will show us the steps that we are to take. He will place us where He wants us to be at and He will tell us what we are to do when we get there. First though, we must always see with clarity and not go around without seeing what is before us. If we allow God to remove what blinds us, then we will be able to see all the wonderful things that He has already done for us. We will see things with such clearness that deception will not be able to be apart of us anymore. We will see the truth and the truth will set us free. We will know what doors are open to us and we will be able to walk right through them with ease. We will never miss opportunities that God has opened for us and we will know where we are going and what we must do when we get there. Yes, the game will change between us and the devil and he will be exposed for the cheat and thief that he is. We will know that we have the power to take him down and fear will be replaced with faith. Are you ready for this? Are ready to walk in the Spirit of Truth?