But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
How often and easily I forget how blessed I am! The words Jesus spoke to his disciples was in response to their question why he taught using parables -- allegories whose meaning was so obscured to human minds that even Jesus' closest disciples had to ask for explanation. Jesus used the question to show the disciples that they were recipients of God's undeserved favor. Unlike so many contemporaries and ancestors, they saw Jesus, the promised Savior who had been foretold for thousands of years! They even understood Jesus' teaching and were able to apply it, but only because God had acted on them to open the spiritual eyes and ears they had willfully shut!
Today, I was having a renewed struggle with myself, reflexively and angrily defending my ability (pretty near perfect, I'd say!) in the face of criticism. I am nowhere near perfect. Only my God and Savior can claim that. But when I am facing a challenge, my human nature wants to rise up with pride in my accomplishments. Of course, when that fails, that same pride is broken and I feel crushed.
What foolishness! When I read God's word like the passage above, I am at once laid low in utter humility and lifted up by confidence in the God who did not leave me in my self-sufficient, prideful rejection of him. My God became like me, but he succeeded in all the ways I have failed. Then he took on himself the death that was the penalty for my rebellion and credited his perfection to my account!
Lord Jesus, by your Spirit, help me to live in your life, not the dead ways from which you have rescued me. Remind me again and again of your perfection that you earned for me and my rottenness from which you ransomed me. Teach me to love others and accept humbly their criticism, because I know I am guilty of far worse than anything they can accuse me of, and because I know that in my weakness your strength shines more brightly.
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