"I was Blind but now I can See"

Well I am sitting here in my office in Ybor sipping some coffee while listening to the rosters in Ybor crow. Boy I love Ybor!! Where else can you look out of your window and see skyscrapers and listen to rosters at the same time. LOL. But seriously this has been an amazing week. Sunday was incredible with so many of you joining us for the Hope Epidemic and Easter. My prayer is that you have been able to share that hope with someone else this week.

I have heard some incredible stories about the hope epidemic this week and also have heard that some of you are struggling a bit. So I wanted to give you a few pointers.

• Be natural. (Just walk up to someone and say "hey I just wanted to give you a little hope today")
• Don't tell them it is from a church (many people think it is just religious propaganda then)
• You may have to instruct them to look inside cause most people won't think that there is $5 inside. LOL
• Be creative

Here is a story that I heard this week. I thought you might enjoy it:

Someone from Relevant gave their Hope Envelope to a cashier at a grocery store and then about an hour later someone from Relevant went into the same store and saw the envelope sitting on the cash register so the person enquired about it. The cashier said oh some lady gave it to me about an hour ago, it is just some church thing I think, I haven't even opened it yet. The person from relevant said "I kind of know about that Hope Epidemic and I think it is worth opening. So the Cashier opened the envelope and saw the $5 then he started running around the front of the store telling everyone the he got $5. The person from relevant said it was priceless. That is what the Hope Epidemic is all about. If you have a story of how you shared Hope this week go to HopeEpidemic.com and submit your story. Let's make this viral.

I was reading John 9 in my Bible this morning and there is a story in this chapter about a man who was blind since birth who Jesus healed. After he was healed the religious leaders began to question him about his miraculous healing and here is what he said.
John 9:24-25 (NLT)
24 So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, “Give glory to God by telling the truth, because we know Jesus is a sinner.” 25“I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!”

This statement rocked my world this morning "I was blind and now I can see" SIMPLE AND TOO THE POINT He was basically saying until this Jesus guy came along he was helpless, hopeless, and in despair, but when Jesus entered his world He opened his eyes to see thing completely different. That is why Relevant exists and that is what the HopeEpidemic is all about. To impact the emerging culture with the reality of Christ. To clear the vision. You see when you are blind like the guy in the story and someone helps you to see for the first time you cannot help but tell someone about it. My prayer is that we would begin sharing our stories of how we were blind in certain areas and then we meet this guy Jesus and he opened our eyes to the truth.