Sunday, February 15 Praise Jehovah your God.​—1 Chron. 29:20.

[Helen Highwater]

Sunday, February 15

Praise Jehovah your God.—1 Chron. 29:20.

 

When Jesus was on earth, he glorified his Father by acknowledging Him as the Source of his miracles. (Mark 5:18-20) Jesus also brought glory to Jehovah by the way he spoke about his Father and the way he treated others. On one occasion, Jesus was teaching in a synagogue. Among those listening was a woman who had been possessed by a demon for 18 years. The demon had caused her body to be bent double so that she was unable to straighten up. How distressing! Moved by compassion, Jesus approached the woman and addressed her tenderly, saying: “Woman, you are released from your weakness.” He then laid his hands on her, and instantly she stood up straight and “began to glorify God,” her health and dignity fully restored! (Luke 13:10-13) That woman had good reason to give Jehovah glory, and so do we. w25.01 2-3 ¶3-4

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There’s something sobering about the account in Luke 13.

 

That woman’s suffering could not be excused. Eighteen years bent double. No hiding it. The oppression had visible shape.

 

In many cultures today, that kind of direct, obvious manifestation is not what people see.

 

That does not mean demonic influence has diminished. It means it often expresses itself differently. Instead of a body bent, it may be a mind bent. Instead of public humiliation, it may be private torment, something normalized in entertainment, in thinking, in moral reasoning.

 

Did you see the contrast? In the first century, people could point and say, ‘This woman is afflicted.’ Today, a culture may point at anxiety, confusion, obsession with power, or fascination with violence—and call it progress or freedom. 

 

What do we learn from that?

 

We mus avoid naivety. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us: “because we have a struggle, not against blood and flesh, but against the governments, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places.” The struggle has not ended; its tactics have shifted.

 

The absence of spectacle does not equal the absence of influence.

 

Deliverance always directed attention upward, not toward spectacle; the result was that she “began to glorify God.”

 

So while oppression may not always appear dramatic in our culture, it still leaves its mark. We discern its fingerprints in systems, attitudes, and pressures that bend people away from Jehovah’s standards. Our task is not to dramatize it, nor to ignore it, but to remain spiritually alert—steady in perception, grounded in truth, and determined that our response, like hers, results in giving glory to Jehovah.