Hello my friend Dr. Brad Miller here with the Daily Bible Refresh.

This is your daily reading of the Bible from a progressive point of view.

In a bit I will read the New Testament lessons selected from the Revised Common Lectionary for this very day.

The reading is understandable.

I use the message version relatable.

Please listen to the points to ponder and applicable with action steps you can take.

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Here's today's reading.

Reading today from the gospel of Matthew 9:27 34 from the Message Become what you believe.

As Jesus left the house, he was followed by two blind men crying out, mercy, son of David, mercy on us.

When Jesus got home, the blind men

went in with him and Jesus said to them, do you really believe I can do this?

And they said, why yes master.

He touched their eyes and said, become what you believe.

And it happened.

They saw.

Then Jesus became very stern.

Don't let a soul know how this happened.

But they were hardly out the door before they started babbling it to everyone they met.

Right after that, as the blind men were leaving, a man who had been struck speechless by an evil spirit was brought to Jesus.

As soon as Jesus threw the evil spirit tormenting him out, the man talked away, just as he had been talking all his life.

The people were up on their feet applauding.

There's never been anything like this in Israel.

The Pharisees were left sputtering, smoke and mirrors.

There's nothing here but smoke and mirrors.

He's probably made a pact with the devil.

Well, that ends the reading of the scripture, friends and I want to thank

you for joining me today wherever you find yourself.

Maybe you're in your car, maybe you're out working out or folding laundry.

Whatever you do.

I'm just glad that you're here with

me as we go a little deeper into this scene.

And what a scene it is, right?

It's incredible scene where Jesus encounters the blind and those who can't speak

and

calls upon them to believe.

Let's talk about two points to ponder.

I want you to sit with the first.

Become what you believe.

That might be one of the most

Radical things Jesus ever said.

And I think sometimes we just kind of breeze right past it.

Notice what Jesus didn't say.

He didn't say believe the right doctrine.

He didn't say pass a biblical or a theological exam.

He said, become what you believe.

That's an invitation to transformation, not a checklist.

And here's where this gets really interesting to me.

What you believe about yourself and about other people, about what God is up to in the world that actually shapes who you become.

If you believe God is mostly angry

and keeping score, you tend to become

a person who is angry and keeping score.

If you believe that God's mercy is real and wide and reckless, you.

You start to become a person who extends the same mercy to others.

And I think about sometimes the folks I deal with.

I have a cancer podcast.

I'm a cancer survivor myself.

And the ones who believe there's still goodness available in this life, in this world, even though they deal with cancer, even the middle of treatment and all the pain of the hard season of life that they're in, they don't just think differently, they live differently.

They become what they believe.

So we're not talking about wishful thinking here.

It's the slow, honest work of letting your deepest convictions shape and reshape you

from the inside out.

Second point to ponder.

Look at the two reactions at the

end of the passage.

The crowd is on their feet in wonder.

The fear is, he's a splitter.

Oh, smoking mirrors.

The same event happens.

Some people cheering, some people jeering completely for different responses.

I think this tells us something important.

What happens when God shows up in

ways that don't fit the approved script, according to others.

See, the Pharisees weren't necessarily bad people.

They were religious professionals who built their whole identity around being the ones who understood God.

So when something out of their understanding, healing and liberation happened outside the the system, they couldn't really celebrate it.

They were threatened by it.

They had to discredit it.

Smoke and mirrors, they said.

And my, my friend, that still happens today.

Don't you know, when marginalized people find

their voice, it's kind of like the

man who was struck speechless and then suddenly talked as if he's been talking his whole life.

There will always be someone who's saying, this isn't real.

This is nothing to this.

That doesn't count.

That's not how God works.

Progressive faith invites us to ask, am I with the crowd standing in awe when people experience freedom, or am I sputtering and stammering on the sidelines because the liberation doesn't look the way I

think it should work the way I expected it to.

My wife and I like to hike and, and go be in the outdoors quite a bit.

Especially we like to go to wooded

parks, state parks, national parks.

We have parks in our community near us.

And one of the cool things that

happens sometimes is you go to a park, especially if you're not familiar with

it, but you might come around a bend or come into an overlook or

a scenic place you just haven't seen before.

And yet you suddenly, your breath is

kind of taken away by unexpected beauty

and you just kind of stand there, just kind of mouth agape and just kind of look at it.

That's like the crowd in this story, they weren't analyzing it.

They were experiencing it.

They were present to the wonder of it.

And, you know, I want to be like a person who comes around the

corner and rounds the vent and gasp in wonder and amazement rather than the one who stands there trying to explain why this view just can't be that good.

Hmm.

Something to think about, to ponder.

Here's your action step for the day.

Finish this sentence, maybe even write it down.

Here's the sentence.

I am becoming.

What I am becoming.

What are you becoming?

And then fill in the blank.

What are you becoming based on what you actually believe right now, today, about yourself, about your God, and about God in you.

And what are you in the process of becoming?

If the answer doesn't feel like freedom, that's okay.

You're just gathering some information.

It's an invitation to ask what you believe, if what you believe maybe needs to shift a little bit or maybe

you need to kind of work to

go down that pathway to find that beautiful scene.

Maybe you got some wilderness time to go.

Maybe some things in your life you need to shift until you're becoming in what you believe becomes more a little more like the person that God made you to be become.

What are you becoming?

We're going to pray here in just

a minute, but I want to invite you to connect up with our great resource that we have for you.

It's called the ABC 1, 2, 3 Bible Study Method.

Free to you just go to our

website, voiceofgodaily.com let's pray.

God, some of us aren't sure what

we believe anymore, and that's okay.

But.

But we want to become people marked

by mercy, the same kind of reckless mercy those two blind men cried out in the road.

So open our eyes to healing and liberation happening all around us, especially in

the places and people we've been taught to dismiss.

Forgive us from the times when we've

been the ones sputtering smoke and mirrors

when you were doing something new and amazing.

Give us the courage to become what we believe and the honesty to examine whether what we believe is making us more loving or more afraid.

We want to be the people who stand in awe, who gasp at unexpected beauty, who celebrate when someone silenced finally finds their voice.

Shape us God, we're willing.

Help us when we're not willing.

Shape us God, to believe.

Amen.

My friend, I am delighted you chose to join me for today's reading.

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Thanks much.

My name is Dr. Brad Miller and I'll be right here tomorrow with your Daily Bible Refresh.

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Remember, God's loyal love doesn't run out.

His merciful love hasn't dried up, it's created new every morning.