Turning A Blind Eye

]“Your eye is the lamp of the body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.”

Luke 11:34

 

As the story goes, in the midst of a naval battle, Admiral Horatio Nelson put a telescope up to his eye to look for orders from a commanding officer on another vessel.  The problem was that Nelson didn't put the telescope up to his good eye but to the eye that had been blinded earlier in his career. Having made up his mind on the course of action he intended to pursue, Nelson looked through his blind eye for orders that would supersede his, saw nothing, and continued the battle. And from that action has been coined the commonly used phrase, “turning a blind eye.”

The definitions for the phrase include “to ignore something and pretend that you don’t see it,” to choose to ignore behavior that you know is wrong” and “to close your eyes to something.” It may have been in that light that Jesus spoke of a people whose hearts had become so calloused that they had eyes but didn’t see and ears but couldn’t hear. In his book, The Grave Robber, Mark Batterson references a distinction made by Jewish rabbis between a good eye and a bad eye, attributing differences to a person’s attitude towards others. A bad eye turned a blind eye to the poor and to the needs of others. A good eye referred to a person’s ability to see and to seize every opportunity to be a blessing toward others.

 

Whether we are studying the teachings of scripture or learning from an 1801 naval battle, the practice of turning a blind eye is as relevant today as it was back then. We turn a blind eye to situations where seeing a need and doing something about it will cost us something, much like those religious people in the parable of the Good Samaritan. When they crossed to the other side of the road, they were turning a blind eye to the man who had been beaten and left for dead. We also turn a blind eye to sin and to wrongdoing, because we fear that taking a stand for what is right will cost us in relationships and in possible repercussions with others.

So much is said in scripture about our opening our eyes to see, and about God opening people’s eyes but it wasn't spoken to those naturally blind, like Admiral Nelson, but to those whose eyes were closed by choice.  Turning a blind eye is often the far easier of the choices we face but it leaves problems unaddressed, issues unresolved and the needs of others unmet. Let’s be purposeful in living our lives with our eyes wide open to the world around us and to the opportunities before us.

God Bless

Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Addition By Subtraction

“The unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.”

Proverbs 11:3

With a horrible record after the first 28 games of the season, the Detroit Pistons decided to release one of their best players, despite still having to pay him over $20 million in the coming years. Now, we would all expect that getting rid of a top player would make a team worse but the opposite happened; the Pistons started playing better and actually winning more after that move was made. Many reasons were given for the improvement in basketball terminology but the final commentary always seemed to include this: addition by subtraction.

The principle is not new. Someone is removed from a team at work who causes chemistry problems among the staff and the work environment improves dramatically. A person who constantly complains and finds faults drops out of your circle of friends and a heaviness is lifted and the fun of spending time with friends almost instantly returns to the group. An addictive habit or a destructive attitude is finally conquered in your life and you feel free as a bird, ready to take on life with a new excitement that has been missing for years. In every case, the breakthrough we are experiencing is the result of addition by subtraction.

Hebrews calls us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Progress in life is not always from trying harder and doing more. We will all find ourselves in situations where the next step in our growth is getting rid of something that is hindering us. Letting go of a relationship that is pulling us back toward the world and sin, waking up to a negative attitude that is poisoning our own well and feeding discontent in our lives, or quite simply getting victory over an area of sin in our lives that has gotten control of us and stands in the way of our going on with the Lord. Far too often we come to the point where we are at a standstill, that place where we aren’t going anywhere in life until something goes.

The Detroit Pistons releasing a star player still under contract was unprecedented, a move never before made in the history of the NBA. But did that stop them? No, doing what everyone else has always done is not why you play the game; you play to win! In the same way, you may be a candidate for a spurt of growth and serious breakthrough in your life. But is may require the hard step of addition by subtraction. Figure out who you want to be as a person and as a Christian, and get rid of anything that doesn’t fit with your accomplishing those goals!

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Expiration Dates

“Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.”

Joshua 23:14

One of the things that changed when the kids moved out was that we had to be more aware of expiration dates on bread, milk and other food products. Before that, we went through food fast enough that it was never an issue. In fact, I’m not sure we even knew that milk had an expiration date until John moved out. But no amount of preservatives can make food last forever, and for our information, and maybe our protection, an expiration date if printed on all perishable food products. And so if you see Nancy or I in the bread aisle at Kroger, you’ll see us reaching for the last loaf of bread in the back that has the farthest out expiration date.

Peter’s words on the day of Pentecost stand in contrast to that thought. When people saw the disciples after God had filled them with the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room, they were “amazed and perplexed” at the way they spoke and how they acted. Peter, however, stood up with an explanation, “This is what was promised by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people..’” Peter returned to a promise given over eight hundred years earlier to explain what was happening to the followers of Jesus. Or look at it this way: Peter quoted a promise given by God that had no expiration date.

In a world of expiration dates, we serve a God who honors His promises. He had promised Abraham that “all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.” The mistakes of Isaac, Jacob and Jacob’s sons didn’t cause it lapse, and the four hundred years in Egypt didn’t move the promise past its expiration date for one simple reason: the promises of God do not come with an expiration date!

My twenty-five percent off coupon to Family Bookstore had an expiration date of last
Thursday, January 8^th. I know that because I went shopping on Friday, January 9^th, and found out it was no longer of any value. But, thankfully, we never have that problem as we kneel in prayer or as we read the words of the Bible. There, we find great encouragement in knowing that the exceedingly great and precious promises given by a loving God thousands of years ago are still valid for you and I to stand on and to trust in today. Yes, there are no expiration dates when it comes to the love God has for us and the promises that flow out of that incredible love.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Stop Underestimating

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all

we could ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church.”
Ephesians 3:20-21

In a prominent location in downtown Detroit, an abandoned construction site, with the concrete pillars and floors poured but with no exterior walls built, sits as a sad display to what can happen when the costs of a project in the hundred million dollar range are grossly underestimated. The new Wayne County jail was supposed to solve the problems of the antiquated, overcrowded facilities currently being used to house prisoners but instead it had to be abandoned because of the costs far exceeding the estimates. Underestimating the proposed costs of the jail project to help ensure legislative approval turned out to be a bad strategy.

Of far less consequence was the underestimating of how much wine the guests would drink at a wedding that took place in Cana around 2,000 years ago. With the guests gathered and the festivities in full swing, the somber message, “they have no more wine” must have been a real cause for stress and concern to the embarrassed hosts. Thankfully, they had invited the only possible guest who could remedy their situation; a guest who could turn the water that was readily available into the wine desperately needed for the wedding feast to not be spoiled.

We’ve all experienced underestimating how long it will take us to get somewhere, how much time it will take to accomplish a home repair project and other areas of varying degrees of consequence. But I want to encourage you to avoid one area of underestimating that can have the most serious consequences of all: stop underestimating God! Here are a few thoughts:

• Stop underestimating what God is able to do through you!
• Stop underestimating the power of prayer to bring change and breakthrough!
• Stop underestimating the value of God’s Word to give guidance and direction! 
• Stop underestimating what the future holds for you because you only see yourself and have lost sight of the greatness of the God who created the universe.
• Stop underestimating the willingness of God to move in your life. The Jesus who reached out his hand and touched the leper, saying “I am willing,” is still the same today!

As we rightly honor God by our proper estimating of His love, His goodness, His power, and His willingness to help us, His moving in our lives is going to be clearly visible in the coming year and we will see Him at work as He completes the good work He has begun in each of our lives.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church