March 19, 2026 Devo

This is such an interesting prophecy about the coming of Jesus. Isaiah points out in our passage that “everyone who has eyes will be able to see the truth, and everyone who has ears will be able to hear it.” Jesus opened the door for the truth to become universal. Jews who grew up uneducated and weren’t as familiar with theology as the religious leaders could understand the simple gospel that Jesus shared. Not only that, but Jesus also opened the door of truth and made it available to the Gentiles who knew NOTHING about the God of the Old Testament. And though it was a tough pill for the Jews to swallow, Jesus revealed Himself to those who had no heritage in the faith, knew none of the traditions the Jews held so dear, and probably didn’t know a single Patriarch. Eyes were opened everywhere.
But do you know who COULDN’T see the truth? The people who didn’t WANT to see it. Many of the religious leaders, some of whom probably memorized the entire Torah, couldn’t see it. They were blinded by their power. They were blinded by their greed. They were blinded by their desire to be the “keepers of the truth.” So in spite of the fact that they knew every scripture about the Messiah, they didn’t recognize Him when He stood right in front of them.
There were others who couldn’t see because they refused to change their idea of what the Messiah would do when He came. They believed He would be a warrior who would raise up a rebellion against the Romans. They believed He would sit on the throne as Caesar did and enact judgment and power over all of Israel’s enemies. They were convinced that the Messiah was going to establish a Kingdom. And He did. They just couldn’t accept the fact that His Kingdom was “not of this world.”
Sit with this idea for a moment or two. Because what Isaiah is talking about isn’t just stuff for the first century. Some of us have a hard time seeing the truth. We CAN. We just sometimes DON’T. Sometimes we too have our own ideas about how God ought to act and what God ought to do, and so when He acts outside of the box we’ve put Him in we simply say, “That’s not God.” Or sometimes God comes at us with a truth that we don’t want to accept. We think it infringes on our freedom. It’s uncomfortable, inconvenient, or just goes against what we want to do. That’s when we fit the description Jesus gave when He said, “Having eyes they see not, having ears they hear not.” Let’s not choose to be spiritually blind and spiritually deaf. “Lord, open our eyes and ears to your truth!” That’s God’s Word for you today.