The How Versus the Who

The Lord Jesus was known for healing the blind. He did this not only out of compassion and to prove He was the Messiah, but also as the prelude to a spiritual lesson. Once, when He encountered a beggar who had been blind since birth, Jesus made clay out of spittle, and applied it the man’s eyes. When the man obeyed Jesus, and washed the clay from his eyes, he could see for the first time!

Almost immediately, the man’s neighbors, who had known him to be blind his whole life, began to question the miracle.

The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he. Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?

John 9:8-10.

When Christ miraculously changes the life of a believer today, this pattern will often still hold true. First, the neighbors will notice. Second, they will begin to wonder “how” the change was wrought. However, this is really the wrong question. What the observers in John Chapter 9 should have been asking was, “Who?” instead of “How?” When your neighbors see a God-made change in your life, and want to know “how” it was done, take that opportunity to tell them instead by “Whom” it was done.

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