Several years ago, a brother called to ask if he could meet with me to talk. We met in my office after church that Sunday morning. I knew he had been absent from the worship assemblies for some weeks, but I had no idea what he wanted to talk about.

He confided to me that his life had “gone downhill” spiritually and that he was not really sure why. He seemed to want me to help him “think through” this circumstance which had become very uncomfortable for him. He told me that his “prayer life,” his Bible reading, and his initiative to just “get ready to come to church” had all gone into a conscience bothering state of neglect.

As we talked, I asked him if he could identify what he had replaced these spiritual things with. He said he was just having difficulty getting up enough initiative to keep up the habit of doing these things and therefore just wound up mostly watching TV, and then later feeling rotten about himself afterwards. I complimented him for deciding to come and talk about this spiritual life problem. I suggested that the problem might be a problem of believing if “believing” is properly defined.

I am sharing here the two main scriptures we talked about that day for the purpose of helping any of us who may experience hte same problem my friend was suffering under:

“The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16)

So, what is the illuminating and empowering message of these two verses? First, the Corinthians verse awakens us to the destructive work of the evil person who is the source cause of our spiritual stagnation. This verse reveals to us how he does it. He blinds our minds from seeing the “glory” (Greek = radiance or splendor) of Jesus our savior. Then secondly, the Romans verse brings our attention back to the empowering scene of what our Lord suffered to save us because He loved us.

The first verse should shock and anger us that we have allowed ourselves to be led and thus blinded to how lovable our Savior is. The second verse points us to the precious concern for us Jesus demonstrated on Calvary. This verse then connects us to the heart-empowering motivation that emanates to us when we “see” that scene with the “eyes of our heart.”