“One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25).

This is the testimony of every person who has received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior: he is able to see.

While not many of us were actually blind as was this man, we were all spiritually blind, unable to see things as they really are on account of our sin. Sin blinds a man; not only is he not able to view himself or the world properly, or at all, he cannot see the glory of God in the face of Christ. Not until the Son comes along and touches him, that is.

O how the masses are blind to the truth! There are far more of them than there are us. I recently read that among the 7,000 or so languages in the world, the Bible has been translated but into 700. And it is the Bible that gives light to a man’s eyes.

I recall Derek Prince telling of his experience. An honored Cambridge scholar, a philosopher, he was drafted into the British army and, deciding upon a book to take along with him, took the Bible, reasoning that given he had read all the other great works of the world, he should read this one also. Well, he did, and God opened his eyes to the truth; he was never the same.

“The entrance of Your word gives light.”

We are born blind just as the man in John 9 was, only spiritually so. Every single person on the planet is ‘naturally’ blind to the truth. Sadly, many who are exposed to the truth remain so deliberately.

“The Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, ‘We are not blind too, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, “We see,” your sin remains’” (verses 40-41).

The world is filled with these sorts too, persons who deny the reality of sin and the need for a Savior. Though they ‘see,’ they are the most blind of all.

For those of us who have received Christ, we are able to see; but not all do. The ability is there, but the pursuit of it is not. The eyes are opened, yes; but the mind is not. We all know that it is possible to be seeing the world around us, but to be missing the most of it. So too are many Christians, they see but they don’t. This is why, I think, Jesus clarifies His disciple-making mandate. Not only does He mandate we “go and make disciples of all the nations,” He instructs as to how this is to be accomplished. He says, “teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.” And so vision comes to those whose eyes are opened–if indeed they are open to be taught, and, of course, there are those to teach them.

How powerful the testimony! Here is a man who has been blind since birth. He is not a learned man, nor has he been with the Lord for but a day. In fact, he doesn’t even know who He is just yet. But he has a testimony. “Though I was blind, now I see.”

So it is that every sincere born-again Christian, no matter how long he has been one, nor even that He knows Jesus to much of a degree, he has a testimony.

I can’t help but picture Mary Magdalene in the TV series, The Chosen. She encounters the Pharisee Nicodemus after both had just witnessed a lame man healed by the Lord. Nicodemus was the one (in the series–it is a historical fiction) who had seen Mary tormented by demons and was unable to help her, and here she was completely different. She says, “I was one way, and now I am different; and the difference is Him.”

“Though I was blind, now I see.”

Every person who has had a life-changing experience with Jesus Christ has the exact same witness. “The difference is Him.” No one can argue with testimony. They may disagree with it, they many not accept it, but they cannot deny that a person has had an experience. That is the power of testimony, and every Christian has one.

In fact, a person’s testimony is so powerful that it overcomes Satan and his cohorts. Revelation 12:11 says this: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”

Testimony is the primary means of evangelism. Whereas the Gospel must be both preached and received, a person’s testimony is perhaps the best way to present it.

I remember the fist few months after Barb and I became Christians. We not only testified to what the Lord had done before a crowd in the Methodist Church, we told our closest friends–who, by the way, no longer were after that, except for Steve and Shoni Smith who, many years later, themselves became Christians.

Giving one’s testimony is also the easiest way to tell about Jesus. Why? Because if your life has been touched at all by Him, and you are different, it is only natural to tell of it. It may be hard to preach the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus in a casual conversation, but it is not so to testify to what God has done for you. You can always work that in to a conversation.

Spiritual vision–the ability to see clearly–is a gift God gives when a person’s spirit is reborn. If you are truly born again you can see the kingdom of God. You are given the ability to see the world–and the people in it, the way God does. And adapt your life and work accordingly.

So it is, that when Jesus comes upon you and He touches your eyes–He touches your life, He leaves you a different person. The difference is Him. Now you can see clearly. Now you have a testimony, something to say to the world around you. “Though I was blind, now I see.” Once I was like that, but now I am different.