Article November 22, 1999 Issue

Are you guilty until proven innocent?

Take stock of your Godlikeness.

By Karl S. Sandberg, Jr.

The man was blind. Apparently, he was born that way. Thus the debate as to why he had been afflicted. Had he sinned, even before he was born? Or had his parents sinned, and was this a form of punishment? (See John 9:1-7).

When those questions were brought to Jesus, he responded to his disciples, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." And with those words, and the healing that followed, the Master overturned the belief that sin can hold God's child in bondage through physical discord and affliction.

Yet today, countless good, honest, morally upright men and women are still in bondage to the insidious belief that every time they experience misfortune, loss, or sickness, it's because they're guilty of some kind of wrongdoing, and they're being punished for it by God. This results in the mistaken conclusion that there are times when we deserve illnesses and afflictions. Just the opposite is true.

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