Father, help me not to expect spiritually blind people to act like anything other than they are. Help me to have Your Son’s capacity for forgiveness expressed in the first moments on the cross—forgive them for they know not what they do. He was recognizing their blindness. Thank You for intercepting and interrupting my journey toward hell and turning me around to look toward heaven. I don’t want to forget that I too was once blind even as I enjoy the amazing gift of sight from You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

lind 12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. 14The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.—1 Corinthians 2:12-14 How should we think about people the Bible describes as spiritually blind? We call a person who can’t walk physically disabled. Would we call a person with a condition that they were born with mentally disabled? The apostle Paul, at one point in his life, was spiritually disabled. Not, won’t, or doesn’t see—can’t! He could not see. That’s the condition of the “natural person” Paul described to the Corinthians. In John 6:44, Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” He’s not getting saved—not unless the Father draws him. She’s not getting saved—not unless the Father draws her. You see, all of us were born on the broad road. It’s a very busy highway—eight lanes—packed with people, running headlong into an eternity separated with God. And unless God Himself intercepts, stops, and turns them, that spiritually-disabled person will go where spiritually-disabled people go. Godhas to do it. Godhas to interrupt. Godhas to intersect the spiritual blindness. Maybe it’s time to stop calling people pagans or heathens. They’re lost because they can’t see! Not don’t see or won’t see. Can’t see. They are spiritually blind. In I Corinthians 2:14, Paul described a person in this condition on this eight-lane highway. He called him the natural man, the way we are before God interrupts; the way we are before God intercepts. And he said, “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; neither can he know them for they are spiritually discerned” (nkjv). Unless God, by the Holy Spirit, intercepts and interrupts, he can’t know it. In fact, the Bible says it’s foolishness to him. God’s Word changes our view of the world and our view of our own experience. We didn’t “find” Christ; He found us and gave us sight. There is nothing about salvation that we can claim credit for. It was His work. We won’t see the world the way God sees it until we realize we are surrounded with blind people in desperate need of healing that only our heavenly Father can give.. —James MacDonald Journal How does my view of the people where I work and live match up to the way God’s Word describes them? In what ways does God’s description of spiritual blindness shape my expectations about the way lost people act?