Are You Blind?

Whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
2 Corinthians 4:4

When you are blinded, you cannot see things as they really are, even though others around you see them clearly. You cannot experience the full reality of all that is around you. You may feel you are experiencing all that there is to life, yet you may be unaware that you are missing what God desires for you. You may even be in danger because of your blindness and not know it. - Blackaby

Who is the god of this world? Satan.

Having been born into this world partially blind, this passage always is a reminder to keep looking at things differently. Because in life, I do see things differently.
Whereas most all of you see a full range of things with 2 eyes, my life, in essence, is like looking through a camera all the time. 

But inside, I can be as blind as anyone, as everyone.  Inside, unfortunately, I have better than 20-20 vision on most days about my sin.  It's not pretty.  King David lamented his Spiritual condition often. Likened it to wasting away. To groanings that ate away at him. To tears that never ended. It bothered him.  It bothers me.
It should bother you.

The current state of where you are Spiritually is beyond more important than where you are physically.  The decisions you make in the physical realm impact your Spiritual realm.  All the time.

Look at the basics.  Food. Food can lift your spirits or send you to misery.
Activity. Doing good to help others can lift your spirits. Striking out senselessly tends to dampen your spirits.  A birthday can perk you up, a funeral sombers you.
It goes on. Excitement and depression are based on your intentions and interactions in this world.

Satan has used sensory overload rather than sensory limitations to blind those of this age.  And like the cattle, who get used to a yoke, we blindly step in and do.  We are stuck with 24/7 news and information.  So much of a bombardment that, unlike the age of newspapers, we don't have time to digest anything.  The next package of information is already here before we can properly parse out what we have been told. 

Why? Because he is afraid of those who have the time to think.  If we do as Christ often did with His Disciples, to stop, unplug, get away, then we will begin to use the brain we were born with.

Why do some people live longer than others?  The worries of this life are no longer important to them.  The newer house, the newer car. The recent expensive vacation.  The frequent road trips. The...fill in the blank.  They come from a generation that had better priorities. 

I often just want to unplug.  The goal of sensationalism in journalism is to work people up.  Journalists used to respect the separation of your personal life from the world.  They used to be impartial.
Wake up, right now, they are on the payroll of the god of this world in trying to TELL you what to think, how to live, what to say.
They are no longer there to just impartially tell you the news. Every television news network has agendas. This cause, that cause.  Show partiality towards this religion over that one. Show the world that sin is ok.  Do they do that? Yes!  They are the biggest most widely used method of promoting homosexuality.  The President isn't lying when he calls them thd fake news media.  They aren't reporting real news, they are reporting what's important to their boss. Satan.
Now not all are all in on blinding you. But the majority are.  Even if they aren't aware of it.  Ratings being what they are.
But that's just one facet of blindness.

We are individually affected by our choices.  We were born to be choosers.
We choose to go down many of the roads we do. We don't give God the time of day until a crisis hits. Then we cry out to Him.  He's God after all, I might not be there for Him but He's always supposed to be there for me. Wake up. God's not your Swiss Army knife.  He's not even duct tape. Nor a 1,000 use paperclip.  He's no Genie in the bottle. Going Poof! What do you need?
Every time you have a problem.

Blinded as we are, we only regain our sight when we come to Christ. We only know what life is, after we are born again and open our spiritual eyes for the first time.  Then we see because now the light of Christ illuminates the world around us.
Scripture says in Romans that we were once dead in our trespasses, our sin. Dead means the body isn't functioning.
The eyes don't work. 
Some may remember the movie "The Green Mile". Dead man walking!

Dead men have no rights, no life to live.
They don't experience anything.  Think about that 6 foot box in the ground in the Cemetery.  See anything happening?
That's you before Christ. 

We are born into a death sentence because of sin.  We are all born into blindness.  Satan knows the Bible. He's aware of every verse.  His minions are fully aware of every verse.  They know the power of God.  They know they cannot go after any who are born again in Christ without the permission of Jesus.
They are very aware of every single aspect of your life.  They know what bothers you and I.  They know our limitations and what it takes to get to us.

They have but 1 mission. To keep people from knowing the truth.  To keep them blinded. Didn't realize you have been manipulated all your life did you?  If you have had your eyes opened by Salvation in Christ, then your attacks are different. The mission of Satan and his minions is to make you as ineffective as possible. To shut you down. Keep you from being what Christ is making of you.  To put up smoke and mirrors to deceive you.  To try to blind you again.

Nicodemus was one of the greatest teachers of the Law. Yet he was blinded.
Paul, when he was Saul, was as taught as Nicodemus.  Jewish leaders were all manipulated and blinded by Satan to kill Jesus.  Thinking they were doing service to God.  Which was all part of the Plan of God.  When the promised one came, the Holy Spirit, eyes were opened. Thousands of once dead and blind people awoke to the truth of God.  Lives were changed.
Priorities changed.  It wasn't the world that mattered it was people.  Idolatry was on a crash dive. Those who made idols to sell were outraged.  Their livelihood was threatened.  They were going after the Church, after the Apostles. To kill them to shut them up. To find a way to get people to want their idols again.

Sounds familiar.  In this day and age, you remove idols from your life, and from friends and family, let alone the culture in which you live, attacks come  upon you for doing so. 

Get laughed at for getting serious about your walk with God?  Get joked about for getting rid of things from your life that God has shown you are dragging you down?  Have you gotten told you are...well..fill in the blank.

I have been there.  But let me be very blunt.  It was no joke as to why Jesus was beaten and nailed to a cross.

Those who are in blindness aimlessly attack those who are not.  All the jokes about zombies. Another movie comes to mind, the Matrix.  Morpheus said that if a person wasn't freed from it, they were a part of it.  Interestingly, that description almost compares to being saved.  Until you come to Christ, your blindness and your unprotected Spirit, are pawns of Satan, the god of this world.  If you're not saved, it will be easy to scoff at that and say you aren't.  But if you are honest with yourself.  Really honest.  You know something is missing from your life.  You can't put a finger on it but you know it to be true.

Scripture says every single person is born with a God shaped hole in their heart.  We are missing only what Christ can fill.

Come to Christ, open your eyes for the first time in your life.

Already a Christian? Wipe your eyes.
Our lives belong to the one who saved us. It isn't for us to be self-centered.  As the early church did, our lives are about others.