Devotions this week based on the Message: “Hope Comes with a Second Chance”.
Remember stereograms?
You know those pictures that looked like a random set of patterns but you were told “If you stare at it long enough, you will see it.” So you stare and stare and nothing happens. You think the person is crazy as they describe the picture. You think you are being duped for a filming of candid camera. (Here try one https://fineartamerica.com/featured/jumping-dolphin-stereogram-jmarp.html).
Usually to be able to “see” the picture embedded in the seeming randomness of what you were looking at, you were told to “look through” the image and focus behind the surface of the two dimensional paper. All of a sudden the 3D image appears and you “see” what you were supposed to see.
It’s pretty cool when you see what the artist intended. You realize how amazing the picture is, but when you can’t see it, it seems like a random pattern of little to no art value.
Not seeing the image was frustrating. Staring for what seemed like forever led me to give up hope that I could ever see what was there. Then the way to see it was revealed.
These images are like our spiritual condition. We try to make sense out of what looks like the randomness of life. People talk about faith and hope and a relationship with Jesus. But this can seem like looking a random set of colors and trying to see anything of consequence.
The Apostle Paul put it this way:
2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
The “god of this age” blinds us to what God wants us to see. In fact the god of this age has eliminated God from our cultural discussion. So what is left? We seek to find direction in “science.” We seek to find morality in the majority. We seek to find answers to cultural problems in “woke” ideologies. We look to the government for solutions and see religion as the problem. Church has been made the bad guy with scandals among leaders or to strict and non-inclusive tenets. The list could go on.
Satan loves to distort, bend and blind the hearts and minds of people to think there is truth where there is none to be found. People hinge their hope and future on one thing only to have that foundation rocked when it is found to be false. Hopelessness comes when everything I think I can count on is completely undependable.
Until someone shares the clue to seeing the meaning and purpose of life. “God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
God gives us a second chance at life and our perspective of it when he reveals Christ to us. We begin to find answers to our purpose in life, our significance and value, and most of all our soul finds rest in grace and the promise of eternity. God shows us where hope and peace are to be found in the forgiveness Jesus offers.
All of a sudden we can see what God wants us to see. The blindness of the world is overcome by the light of Christ.
Apply: The god of this age loves to skew our understanding of life, relationships, faith and much more. What area is clouded by the world’s thinking? Take time to search the Bible for the truth and answers. Don’t let Satan steal the glorious things God reveals by his Light!
Prayer: Lord thank you for opening my eyes of faith to see all the amazing things you have given and prepared for me! AMEN.