'BLIND MINDS'

When I was really and truly ‘born again’ in my early twenties, there was a resultant change in my lifestyle, and my attitudes, and my understanding of many aspects of life, all from a new-found Biblical perspective.
Whereas formerly whenever I had tried to read and understand the Bible, I just could not fathom it at all- even wondered what others could see in it - but from this time on I could actually understand it, and I amazingly found its words came ‘alive’.
The person who had been instrumental in connecting with me at this time in my life, very obviously had had the same transforming experience, and so had a considerable number of my new found Christian acquaintances, and we shared this in common.
I naively thought that each and every ‘Christian’ that I met, and would meet, also had much the same eye-opening / spiritual understanding occurrence and experience.

But as time passed, and I met more and more ‘Christians’,  I slowly came to realise a strange fact – that not every ‘Christian’  so–called, shared the joy of my experience, and stranger still to my immature experience, not every one ‘interpreted’ or understood passages of the Bible in the same way.  
But didn’t we all serve the same God, and aren’t we supposedly led by the same Holy Spirit of Truth ? I pondered.   
Then ..  Why the differences ?

As the years passed, I came to some sort of realization … we are all different!
Well, everybody knows that …  I hear you say,  that’s elementary!
Yes,  we are all different, but our God is the same, unchanging, without partiality or favour to all of mankind.   (Scriptures abound to verify this) 
His Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, and there is one God,  one ‘Way’,  one ‘Life’ in Jesus, who promised to send His Spirit to led us in to ‘all truth ‘
So, why the differences on some basic facts and interpretations and in our ‘spiritual understanding’ of the Bible?

And slowly the fascinating realization has dawned on me - 
that WE ALL FILTER OUR READING OF SCRIPTURE from our own background, upbringing, environment, biases, influences, attitudes (even theological training) etc
None of us is a truly ‘blank canvas’, on which the Holy Spirit illuminates and writes
until we are ‘born again’ ...... a new spiritual creation.
(Plus the fact that we are all at different stages of growth, some immature, some carnal (earthly), some mature.)
And then this phrase caught my eye  2 Corinthians 3:14,  4:4
where Paul talks of those whose ‘minds are blinded’  against the truth

I thought that blindness was only a matter of visual blindness, lack of sight,  through eye-damage perhaps, or disease, or cataracts, or some other malfunction of the eye.
But 'blindness of the mind' …. what is that or this ?

Someone once said that the role of the Prophet, (or any spiritual gifting) was simply
TO MAKE PEOPLE SEE … to bring or restore vision to blind eyes  … to remove cataracts as it were, that hinder sight.
The early prophets were called SEERS  ….  SEE-ers  …. I Samuel 9:9 
Those ‘men of God’  who could ‘see’ …… discern spiritual conditions and remedies and that ordinary people could tell that they knew the mind of God personally.
And so for Jesus’ own mission  ... to bring sight to the blind  Luke 4:18
We all undoubtedly have some  ‘blind spots’  in our vision and understanding ..
And that’s just why we all need each other, continually ….

But the  ‘mind blindness’,  that Jesus accused the Pharisees of?
“You fools and blind “  he accused them to their face   Matthew 23:17, 19
“You blind guides”   he rebuked them over and over   Matthew 23:16, 24, 26
Their religiosity, their narrow perception of the truth, their tradition, their Legalism, etc etc had made most of their number (except for Nicodemus and a few other seekers of truth)  BLIND ....... both spiritually and in attitudes!

And then there is that amazing John 9 chapter, when Jesus healed the man who had been blind from birth, which led Jesus to another confrontation with the Pharisees.
Jesus said, “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day …. so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind”  Some Pharisees overheard him and said, “Does that mean you’re calling us blind?”  Jesus said. “If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.”      John 9:39-41 The Message

So, what has changed since those days ?   I pondered
Not that much in so many of us commonly called  ‘Christians’,  I guess.
Filtering Scripture from our narrow religious background, interpreting it by our traditional way, from our denominational viewpoint, from our bigoted, biased upbringing  …. not allowing the Holy Spirit free rein to illuminate what he would in us.
It took the formerly religious Pharisee Saul, transformed even re-named as Paul, 3 years of solitude in the Arabian desert to receive his new insights.  Galatians 1:16-18

And I am reminded of the result of blindness every time I watch an automatic vacuum cleaner at work in a swimming pool   It is mechanically ‘blind’  as it were, as it feels its way around the sides of the pool and is influenced by the pool shape, water flow, and any obstructions. And so, it keeps to THE SAME PATTERN as it works, around and around over the same path continually, cleaning only along the same route, missing the remainder, and leaving much of the pool bottom …. untouched.  
How very much like the Spiritually Blind I think – most of the PRS – the Present Religious System - of institutionalised religion …. always doing things in THE SAME OLD DREARY PATTERN  … tradition … religiously cleaning the same old pathway, leaving so much personal potential untouched, un-realised and un-fulfilled.
What a curse any system can become !
“We have always done it this way, so it must be right” is the underlying thought !
Someone observed that there are 7 words that will kill ANY Church group (even a house group!)  ……  “ WE HAVE ALWAYS DONE IT THIS WAY”

And the well-known warning to the Church at Laodicea  Revelation 3:18
“You make me want to vomit. You brag, “I’m rich, I’ve got it made, I need nothing from anyone, oblivious to the fact you’re a pitiful, BLIND beggar, threadbare and homeless. ……..  Here’s what I want you to do …… buy medicine for your eyes from me so that you can SEE, really SEE …”        The Message

The book of Acts is a constant reminder and a rebuke to me, every time I venture into its pages  …….  the freshness, the uniqueness, the personal leading of God, that I and many others I guess, CRAVE so earnestly
To be Holy Spirit led ….. to have our minds continually renewed, our spiritual awareness and understanding and insight developed ….  even daily.

To personally seek God continually, daily, earnestly ….

To personally get the Holy Spirit’s viewpoint and direction and insights …. WOW

To replace mental and ‘mind blindness’   with spiritual sight ……  what JOY

To favour Scripture over any Church or religious tradition.

To wait on God alone until his Spirit ‘quickens’  (makes alive) a passage of Scripture ….. what a thrill

My goal, my passion, my driving motivation !
My encouragement to those I met with !
My encouragement to any …  my readers

T a s t e   and   S E E