Lord, Open My Eyes
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” 40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence. 44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” 45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” - Luke 24:36-49 (NIV).
When Jesus appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, they did not immediately respond with the kind of confident faith we might expect. These were the people who had followed Him for nearly His entire public ministry. They had watched Him heal people, raise the dead, calm storms, and explain that He would suffer, die, and rise again. They had just been told by the women that the tomb was empty. And now Jesus Himself was standing in the room with them.
And somehow, they still weren’t quite getting it.
Luke tells us that when Jesus appeared, the disciples were frightened and thought they were seeing a ghost. Jesus asked them why they were troubled and why they had doubts in their minds. Then He showed them His hands and feet and invited them to touch Him. He wanted them to see that He was not a spirit but a real, resurrected person.
And then, in what may be one of my favorite details in the entire resurrection account, He asked them if they had anything to eat. They gave Him some broiled fish, and He ate it in front of them (Luke 24:36–43).
I love that Jesus did not seem irritated by their humanity. He did not shame them for being afraid. He did not roll His eyes at their confusion. He did not say, “Guys, we have been over this.” He met them in the middle of their fear and uncertainty and gave them exactly what they needed in that moment: “Look at me. Touch me. See my wounds. Give me some food. I am really here.”
Jesus knew that they were overwhelmed by what they were seeing. Luke even says that while they still did not believe because of their joy and amazement, He asked them for something to eat (Luke 24:41). Their problem was not necessarily hostility toward Jesus or some deliberate refusal to believe Him. They were confronted with something so astonishing that their minds were struggling to catch up with what their eyes were seeing.
But then something even more important happened. Jesus began explaining the Scriptures to them. He showed them that His suffering, death, and resurrection were not random events but the fulfillment of what had already been written in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. And Luke says, “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45, NIV).
Read that again.
Jesus did not simply give them more information. He opened their minds to understand the information they already had.
The disciples had Scripture. They had heard Jesus teach. They had witnessed His ministry firsthand. They had been told He would rise again. They were now literally standing in the presence of the resurrected Christ. And still, they needed Jesus to give them understanding.
I think we sometimes forget how dependent we are on God when we open our Bibles.
We can study Scripture carefully. We can learn context, history, language, theology, and doctrine. We should do those things. Christianity is not opposed to thinking, and biblical faith is not built on pretending that difficult questions do not exist. But there is a limit to what human intellect can accomplish on its own. We can know what the words say without understanding what God is revealing through them. We can accumulate biblical information without actually seeing Christ more clearly.
We need God to open our eyes.
That is not a reason to study less. It is a reason to pray more.
The psalmist understood this. Before asking God to explain every difficult doctrine or solve every confusing circumstance, he simply prayed, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” (Psalm 119:18, NIV).
That is a pretty good prayer for Bible study.
“Lord, open my eyes.”
Not, “Lord, confirm what I already think.”
Not, “Lord, help me find the verse that supports the conclusion I have already reached.”
Not even, “Lord, give me something inspirational so I can feel better today.”
“Lord, open my eyes.”
Show me what is actually here. Correct what I have misunderstood. Expose what I have assumed. Help me see Jesus where I have overlooked Him. Give me the humility to receive Your Word instead of constantly trying to make Your Word fit me.
Because Scripture does not need to be made more relevant to us. We need to be made more receptive to Scripture.
And this is just one more area where the Holy Spirit is so important. Jesus did not leave His followers with a Bible and a vague instruction to figure everything out. He promised them the Spirit.
In John 14:26, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit would teach His followers and remind them of what He had said. The Spirit does not give us some secret meaning hidden behind Scripture that nobody else can access. Rather, He works in us so that we can rightly understand, remember, receive, and apply what God has revealed.
Spiritual understanding is ultimately a work of God - That should make us humble. It should also make us hopeful!
Because if understanding depended entirely on how intelligent, disciplined, educated, or spiritually impressive we were, some of us would be in serious trouble (talking to myself here). Thankfully, God does not ask us to manufacture spiritual sight. He invites us to come to Him for it.
And we need that help far beyond our quiet time in the morning...
We need the Holy Spirit when Scripture confronts something we would rather ignore. We need Him when obedience feels inconvenient. We need Him when God’s Word says something different from what our culture says, our feelings say, or our carefully constructed plans say. We need Him when we are convinced that we already understand a situation and then discover that God is asking us to see it differently.
Sometimes the problem is not that we don’t know enough Scripture. Sometimes the problem is that we know the words but have not yet allowed the Spirit to expose what those words require of us.
That is a much more uncomfortable problem. But it is also a much more hopeful one, because the answer is not simply to try harder. It is to come honestly before God and ask Him to do what only He can do.
And Luke 24 takes this even further.
After Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, He told them that they were witnesses of these things. He gave them the message they were to proclaim: repentance and forgiveness of sins would be preached in His name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem (Luke 24:46–48). But then He told them not to rush off and start doing everything immediately. They were to wait until they had been “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49, NIV).
In other words, understanding the mission was not enough to accomplish the mission.
They needed the Spirit.
The disciples would eventually become bold witnesses of Christ, but not because they suddenly became fearless people who had mastered the material. In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells them that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and then they will be His witnesses. Pentecost was not an optional spiritual upgrade for particularly enthusiastic Christians. The Spirit’s empowering presence was essential to the work Jesus had given them to do.
And it is still essential to ours.
We can know the right answers and still need the Spirit to make us faithful. We can be able to explain the gospel and still need the Spirit to give us courage to share it. We can understand what God has commanded and still need the Spirit to give us the desire and strength to obey it. We can know what Scripture says about forgiveness and still need the Spirit to help us actually forgive someone. We can know that God is trustworthy and still need the Spirit to teach our hearts to trust Him when circumstances make that difficult.
Knowledge matters. Conviction matters. Sound theology matters. But Christianity was never intended to be lived by information alone.
We need the living God.
Maybe that is why I always find the disciples so encouraging. They were not the finished product when Jesus appeared to them. They were confused, frightened, amazed, joyful, and struggling to process what was happening. Jesus met them there, taught them, opened their minds, commissioned them, and then told them to wait for the Spirit. He was patient with the process.
And we can be honest about ours, too.
Maybe you are in a season where you know what Scripture says, but you are struggling to understand how it applies to your life. Maybe you have read a passage twenty times and still feel like you are missing something. Maybe you are wrestling with a question you cannot neatly resolve. Maybe you know that God is trustworthy in your head, but your heart is still having a hard time believing Him.
That does not mean you should abandon Scripture. It means you should come to it with humility and ask God to open your eyes. Keep reading. Keep studying. Keep asking questions. Keep praying.
And perhaps, before you open your Bible today, borrow the psalmist’s prayer: “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” (Psalm 119:18, NIV).
Because the goal is not simply to finish another Bible reading plan or walk away with three new facts about the book of John.
The goal is to see Jesus.
And when God opens our eyes to see Him more clearly, His Word becomes more than information we possess. It becomes the means through which He gives life, corrects us, comforts us, confronts us, and teaches us to walk faithfully with Him.
The psalmist eventually says, “I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life” (Psalm 119:93, NIV).
That is the prayer I want to have for Scripture—not simply that I would know more of it, but that God would continually use it to give me life.
Lord, open my eyes. Open my mind. Teach me Your Word. Give me Your Spirit. And then, when I understand what You are asking me to do, give me the grace to actually do it.
bytaylormcgee
