Live to Love Scripture Encouragement

John 10:5 “A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” The Pharisees were strangers to the now-seeing-man. He was fleeing from them because his heart had been taught to recognize Jesus for who He is. The voices of the Pharisees were now foreign to him. He could no more follow them than a sheep would follow a stranger out of the...

John 10:4 “When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. Jesus takes the lead in the same way that a shepherd goes before the lead of the flock. He sings, they follow. He speaks, they follow because they know His voice. I say we live to love with Jesus because the shepherd is always with His sheep. He guides by His word, we follow and...

John 10:3 “To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” In this statement, Jesus reflects on the shepherd and sheep leaving the fold. His focus however, is still on the doorkeeper and the sheep recognizing the shepherd. Who is the doorkeeper? It is God who lets both the shepherd and the sheep in and out. God recognizes Jesus as...

John 10:2 “But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.” Here, Jesus reflects on the entrance to the fold. The shepherd has access to the sheep fold. Jesus was saying that He has access to God. It’s another way of saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6). The Pharisees considered themselves shepherds, the leaders of the people....

John 10:1 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.” Jesus was still talking to the Pharisees who asked if they were blind. Jesus had told them that because they say they see, they were blind and that their sins remained. Notice how Jesus answered their question with a parable about the sheep...

John 9:40-41 Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, "We are not blind too, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains. The Pharisees thought that they saw the world accurately, but they couldn’t see that Jesus was the Light of the world. They were blinded by their sin, so obviously they...

John 9:39 And Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind." When Jesus visits us, God’s judgment is revealed. He is just to give sight to the blind because of His work on their behalf in Jesus Christ. He is also just to not give sight to those who are proud and think they see—who are not justified in Christ. Those...

John 9:38 And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped Him. Notice the power of revelation. It produced faith, and faith was expressed through worship. Faith isn’t something we can generate. It’s a gift that comes through the power of faith which comes from hearing. The hearing comes by the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17). It’s supernatural, which gives us confidence that He loves us and wants a r...

John 9:37 Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you." Revelation! Revelation is the currency of relationship. It’s not that the man went looking for Jesus. Jesus went looking for him to reveal Himself so there could be a relationship. When Jesus reveals Himself, divine power operates. Eyes are opened. Darkness becomes light. One receives ears to hear. Kn...

John 9:36 He answered, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?" Who is the Son of Man? Imagine the change in his life. Blind from birth and now in the first hours of life with sight. Let’s remember, the last time Jesus saw him, he didn’t see Jesus. Jesus sent him off with mud in his eyes to go and wash them. So even though now he could actually see Jesus, he didn’t know he was the one who ope...

John 9:35 Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" Isn’t it amazing how Jesus gets right to the heart of relationship with Him? He didn’t try to help him process how he had been rejected or how he felt about what had just happened to him. The only thing that mattered was faith in Jesus. This reminds us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus rath...

John 9:34 They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?" So they put him out. Rather than grapple with the truth of who Jesus is and the reality of the miracle of a blind man now seeing, they react in pride by attacking the messenger. As they are entirely in their sins, they accuse him of their own condition and censor him. From their perspective he is toxic to their...

John 9:33 If this man were not from God, He could do nothing." True. And the same is true for us. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. If the love of God flows at all through us, then we are from God. It is the proof that we are His and that Jesus is from God. For Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” And “I in them and You in Me, that...

John 9:32 Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. That’s true! And Jesus healed more than one blind man. “And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them” (Matt. 21:14). What love! What compassion! What a powerful testimony the Father gave to validate His Son so that we might believe in Him. The Pharisees and...

John 9:31 We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him. God doesn’t hear sinners. Yet, God hears His people when they pray. How can God hear them, since they still sin? There can only be one explanation. “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). “And although you were formerly alienated and hos...

John 9:30 The man answered and said to them, "Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. This is an amazing thing, indeed! Millions of people have been healed of spiritual blindness and testify to have had their eyes opened by Jesus. Nevertheless, their testimonies are denied and censored because they are a threat to their autonomy. They want...

John 9:29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from." Jesus had told the Pharisees and Jews that God had spoken to Him. “But I speak these things as the Father taught Me” (John 8:28). He had also told them where He was from. “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23). There were some who knew whe...

John 9:28 They reviled him and said, "You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. The Pharisees thought they were disciples of Moses, however, they weren’t. Jesus said that the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms spoke of Him (Luke 24:44), and had they really been disciples of Moses, they would have recognized Him. Everyone is a disciple of someone. The Pharisees received glory fro...

John 9:27 He answered them, "I told you already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?" Why didn’t the Pharisees listen the first time? My guess is that they didn’t want to listen because they knew they would have to give up everything they knew and had to follow Jesus. It appears that was the man’s conclusion was well. When o...

John 9:26 So they said to him, "What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?" Again, there’s no compassion or love with the Pharisees toward the man. They were only concerned about proving that Jesus was a sinner and an impostor. Because we are all sinners, we must also be on guard against the blinding power of bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. The apostle James wrote that wherever those...

John 9:25 He then answered, "Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." The healed blind man stated the obvious, which implied that the Pharisees’ were blind. He was blind, but now was healed and seeing the world around him. However, he also had spiritual sight that the Pharisees lacked. He had experienced Jesus’ mercy, compassion, and love. Hi...

John 9:24 So a second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, "Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner." They gave the “seer” a second chance to agree with their blindness. In essence, they were pressuring him, “Ignore the science and agree with what we say.” However, someone who has once been blind, but has come to see Light and the Truth, cannot ignore reality...

John 9:20-23 His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself. His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the sy...

John 9:19 and they questioned them, saying, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?" Maybe the parents could get them out of the dilemma by testifying that this was their son and that he was never blind. Then it could all be declared a fraud. Or maybe they had another explanation that would allow them to deny the miracle and expose Jesus as a charlatan. As we will...

John 9:18 The Jews then did not believe it of him, that he had been blind and had received sight, until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sightings , This narrative shows us how difficult it is for people to believe in Jesus who don’t want to give up their lives. The Jews were still looking for a way to escape the reality that Jesus is Lord. It’s not possible to believe...