Utumishi Blog

One of the most helpful things I read in 2014, a few days before it ended:

When people have doubts about the truth of Jesus, don’t send them away to seek special messages from God. Point them to Christ.
Why? Because this is where God breaks in with his revealing power. He loves to glorify his Son! He loves to open the eyes of the blind when they are looking at his Son! 
God does not reveal his Son to me by coming to me and saying, “Now, John, I know that you don’t see anything magnificent in my Son. You don’t see him as all glorious and divine and attractive above all worldly goods. You don’t see him as your all-satisfying treasure, and you don’t see his holiness and wisdom and power and love as beautiful beyond measure. But take my word for it, he is all that. Just believe it.”  No!
Such faith would be no honor to the Son of God. It cannot glorify the Son. Saving faith is based on a spiritual sight of Jesus as he is in himself, the all-glorious Son of God. And this spiritual sight is given to us through his inspired Word, the Scriptures.
(John Piper, The Dawning of Indestructible Joy, p. 65-66, some emphasis added)

So we should not expect that as an unbeliever lies on his bed or sits on his sofa thinking of nothing in particular that the Spirit will suddenly fly in the window, raise him from the dead, impart repentance and faith. It will be as he considers Christ. As he listens to the Word or as he mulls it over in his mind.

So the great command in the New Testament is not “Be born again” and is rarely even “Believe” but more “Behold” – look at the Son in the pages of Scripture and as you do so the Father will very often be pleased to open your eyes to see the glory of God in the face of Christ.

So preaching is important.

And particularly preaching that paints a picture of Christ.