June 2016 Theme – Divine Amazement
Amazement is a feeling of great surprise or wonder; it is the feeling that accompanies something that is extremely surprising and shocking. When that feeling of surprise comes from the acts of God or with the assistance from God, it is referred to as Divine amazement.
God Himself is amazing. His person, nature and deeds are just too amazing. God also specialises in turning other personalities into amazing objects.
In John 9:1-38, Jesus turned the life of a man into huge amazement. The man was over 40 years and had been born blind. In Jewish traditional belief and to some extent even in medicine; an ailment that occurs post-birth still stand a chance to be corrected, but when an ailment like blindness, deafness, dumbness and lameness was already there before birth; the Jews believed that it is irreversible, and it’s largely so in medicine also.
When this man came in contact with Jesus, he was taken back to Eden for re-creation; Jesus anointed his eyes with mud and asked him to go and wash in Siloam pool. He came back seeing with brand new eyes!
The occurrence was so shocking to the Jews and their leaders who have not seen anything like that happened before (John 9:18). The man had to explain himself over and over again, the Pharisees were so amazed that the act actually divided them (John 9:16).
The man was so amazed himself, but did not let the Sahendrin council to convince him that Jesus was a false prophet. His parents were also shocked, they however played safe by telling anyone that asked them how it happened to speak to their son directly. Eventually, this amazing act gave glory to God as Jesus rightly has said.
In this month of June, God will do amazing works in us and through us. These acts will be surprising to us, to our relations and especially our onlookers. Severally, people will ask us how it happened. We would only be able to say, “It happened so that God might glorify His name”. May that be the testimony for us all in Jesus name.