7-18-2024

Good Morning All,

          Matthew 11: 4-5; “And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see:  the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them”.

    When our boys were little, we would play a game with them.  We called it “I Spy.”  We would start with the phrase, “I spy with my little eyes” and then go on to describe an object in the room.  We might look at the picture on the wall and say, “I spy with my little eyes something square, with colors of blue and red and green.  I spy with my little eyes something high up and looking down on me.”  Hopefully, they would figure out what we were talking about and point it out to us.

    The essential part is to give good clues.  You try and make them somewhat age specific.  You try so that they are not too easy or too hard.  The clues should provide the answer that you are looking for.  As the boys got older, we tried to make the clues a little harder.  Sometimes we did too good a job.  Sometimes they would be distracted by the television or a handheld game and forget some of the earlier clues.  Then they would get flustered and miss the object that was being spied on.

    Our verse for today is about a man who missed some of the clues.  John the Baptist was in prison and waiting for Herod to kill him.  He had been out and preached the repentance that the Holy Spirit directed him to do.  His was a ministry of about six months and he possibly baptized many thousands of people.  He even identified Jesus as the Messiah, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  Yet sitting in prison waiting for your execution can make you miss some of the clues.  He wondered if Jesus was really the one they were waiting for.  He sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus that very question.  What Jesus gave in response are the clues that John had forgotten for the moment.  When he heard this, he was renewed.

    If John the Baptist can miss the clues, you know you and I can.  If John can question while under duress, you and I will also.  But just like John, Jesus keeps reminding us of the clues of his love for us.  He reviews the words of redemption, the words of consolation and the words of hope.  We have his Spirit, grace, blessings, gifts, and mercy.  The clues are there even if we get distracted or confused.  God’s grace is revealed to us through the Scriptures.  Sometimes the devil will use whatever means he has to confuse us; sometimes it works.  But God keeps coming to us, showing us his love and grace, and bringing us back into his loving arms. 

    We may fall short once in a while, but God’s love is always there.  We may miss it because of the distractions that we have but God’s love is still there.   God’s love is always there.

Father of grace, we give you thanks for the blessings of today.  Father we often overlook your love and mercy and fail to see the truth of your grace.  Strengthen us to see your mercy alive in our lives and active in our days.  Help those who are especially missing the signs of your love.  Let them spy on your grace.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret