On This Day: To See or Not to See, That is the Question

   “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

   My focus on the above paragraph of Scripture is to attach to Jesus Christ my Savior about how well I have experienced what he came to do. If he came to proclaim good news to the poor, I want my impoverished heart to rejoice in the good news. If he came to proclaim liberty for this captive, I want to be as “free indeed” as Jesus intended. And if he came to proclaim sight to replace my blindness, I want to see as clearly as is possible this side of heaven.

   Jesus’ physical miracles were not the primary focus of his ministry. What he did with physical healings was to reveal his greater intention of giving his people freedom from all the ravages of sin. So, his focus on giving sight to the blind speaks to the spiritual blindness of the world, that people must be given restoration of sight to be able to see what God has given us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

   When I suddenly saw this through the filter of past, present, and future, it made so much sense of why there is an awareness of seeing that goes back to receiving Jesus as my Lord and Savior, an awareness that there is coming a day when I will see without any hindrances whatsoever, but also that this present life is a journey of maturing in our sight.

   But this also makes so much sense when we picture Jesus as “the light”. Having blind eyes opened to see is not an end in itself, but the means to the end of knowing God. We must have spiritual sight of Jesus to know him and only those who want to know him have their eyes opened.

   Even in church life, some folks have that “hunger and thirst for righteousness” that makes them keep getting to know God better than they have ever known him before. At the same time, others are quite content to carry their life-insurance-policy salvation as they build their lives with “wood, hay, and straw” instead of the richness of their salvation if they were building with “gold, silver and precious stones” (I Corinthians 3:12-13). 

   My encouragement to everyone today is let yourself travel the Beatitudinal Journey in this paragraph of God’s word. Luke’s record is Scripture. What Jesus was reading from Isaiah 61 is Scripture. All Scripture is breathed-out by God (II Timothy 3:16-17) so we can “live by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). 

   So, we are blessed when we hear that Jesus came to restore sight to the blind and we feel poverty of spirit as we realize we don’t see as well as we could. We are blessed when we mourn any deficiencies in our spiritual eyesight, and when we meekly surrender to the authority of Jesus Christ to give us far better sight than we are experiencing. We are blessed when we let ourselves hunger and thirst for whatever righteousness of seeing is lacking in our lives. God promises to satisfy that hunger and thirst for all who surrender to the Beatitudinal blessings (based on Matthew 5:1-12).

   For me, to simply break down Jesus’ work into the past, present, and future gives me confidence that Jesus has already given me sight, gives me hope that my sight will one day be perfected, and gives me faith that I can keep growing in my eyesight “from one degree of glory to another” (II Corinthians 3:18) as I submit to whatever the Spirit is saying and doing in my life each day. 

    Today’s, “To see or not to see” question is ours to answer. The light has come into the world. Let us receive him with eyes-wide-open and keep in step with whatever he is doing in us, through us, and around us. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)