Tuesday after the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on August 17, 2021 by under
Scripture: St. John 9:1-7 (NKJV)
9:1 Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. 4 I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. 7 And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.
Devotion
In many cases, disabilities and diseases are not the direct result of an individual’s sins or of the sins of his parents but are the result of the sin-corrupted world in which we live—a corruption brought upon us as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden.
Why does God allow this sin-corrupted world to go on? “That the works of God should be revealed in [us].” Though all of us are sinners living in a world corrupted and cursed on account of sin, God lets this world go on a little longer so that He might open our eyes to the truth through the preaching of His Word. He desires to move us to repent of our sinful and rebellious ways and trust in Christ and His sacrifice on the cross for sins of the world. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
When we see our sinfulness and trust in Christ for pardon and forgiveness, this is entirely God’s gracious working in us. The Scriptures also tell us: “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
Prayer: Almighty and Everlasting God, Who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of Thy mercy, forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
