February 21
2019
Blinded by our own Expectations
Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why have you not brought Him?” The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!” Then the Pharisees answered them, “Are you also deceived? “Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him? “But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them, “Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?” They answered and said to him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.” John 7:45-52
The people saw the miracles and heard Jesus speak with authority and they believed.
The Pharisees, however, felt that they were all being deceived.
How can two groups of people see the same things and have such different interpretations and beliefs about it?
It all comes down to your expectations.
The people were open and willing to receive what they saw and heard as it was, in the moment, and without previous expectations about how it would look like.
They believed.
The Pharisees, however, had a very clear expectation of what the Messiah would look like and act like and how the whole process would unfold.
Because it wasn’t what the expected, they did not believe and felt that everyone was being deceived. The Pharisees were blinded by their own expectations.
They couldn’t accept that God was doing a new thing, they were waiting for a continuation of the old thing:
“Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.”
What are you expecting today?
Has God given you a promise that you have all mapped out?
Are you willing and able to be open to the fact that God may be doing a new thing and that thing you have mapped out may look very different from what you expected?
We often miss the move of God because we are blinded by our expectations.
We must not be like the Pharisees who couldn’t see the Messiah because there hadn’t been a prophet who came out of Galilee before.
They missed the move of God because they weren’t open to God moving in a new way.
Oh that our eyes would be open to the Hand of God moving in our lives and in the lives around us!