Month: August 2020

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened (Eph. 1:18) 

Each of our five senses adds a unique contribution to our ability to gain knowledge.  Sight’s contribution includes:  color, shape, size, dimension, light, and distance.  Obviously, without sight our perception of reality would be greatly diminished.  The same is true with our spiritual sight.  That is why a reoccurring theme in the Old Testament is “Lift up your eyes and see”.  

“Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name” (Isa. 40:26). 

Jesus refers to this Old Testament theme when He said that He came to heal the disease of spiritual blindness caused by our rebellion.  We are all born into the kingdom of darkness resulting in spiritual eyes that need the healing touch of the Great Physician. 

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, for He has anointed Me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free” (Luke 4:18).

Paul continues the theme:

“The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4 NIV).

In our last blog we looked at the spiritual harvest in the city of Sychar in Samaria.  When Jesus explained the significance of that encounter, He said to His disciples:   

“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest” (John 4:35).

Using spiritual eyes Jesus wanted them to see more than a disreputable woman and a group of ethnic Samaritans.  He wanted them to see what He saw … a spiritual harvest.  In other words, Jesus chose to go through Samaria not just for the sake of the woman at the well but for the spiritual harvest in Sycar.  He wanted the disciples to see what He saw: reality beyond the obvious.  They needed their spiritual eyes to see what was true but not obvious with natural eyes.

Paul prayed for the Ephesians, “… that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know…” your hope, the rich inheritance, and His great power working in you (Eph. 1:18).  We cannot understand or experience those three concepts unless the eyes of our hearts have been refocused.  Notice, Paul didn’t assume spiritual sight was automatic. It is something that needs divine assistance.

Our spiritual sight is not the same as dreams and visions as recorded in Scripture.  God used them at times, but they were not normative.  What is normative is the need for us to “fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith” which is the only way we can see what He sees (Heb. 12: 1-2).  The need for spiritual vision, the lifting up of our eyes to see, is imperative for every Christian if we are to live as apprentices of Jesus.

Elisha gives us an Old Testament example of the power of seeing what was real though invisible.  Elisha is staying in the city of Dotham when it is surrounded by the armies of the King of Aram seeking Elisha’s life.  Elisha’s servant, in panic mode, warns Elisha about this threat.  When Elisha appears unconcerned, the servant wonders if his master is losing his (natural) eye sight.  But Elisha’s calmness was not the result of what he didn’t see but of what he did see.

Then Elisha prays, “’O Lord, open his eyes that he may see.’  Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17).  

Too often like the servant of Elisha, we fail to grasp spiritual reality, limiting our understanding to our physical senses, basing our view of reality on what we are told by the media, others, and even our own experiences.  Sometimes we fail to see the spiritual warfare that is opposing us and neglect the armor needed to stand firm.  At other times we fail to see all the spiritual resources God has made available to us and choose to live as impoverished sons and daughters of the King.  That is why Paul gave the Corinthians this reminder, “So we fix our minds not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen (invisible but real, …known only with spiritual eyes) is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).    

When Samuel was sent to the household of Jesse to identify God’s choice of a new king to replace Saul, he was reminded of the limitations of natural eyes.  Samuel saw the older sons and was impressed.  As he worked his way down from the oldest to the youngest, Samuel would have selected any one of them.  They all had good resumes. 

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1Sam. 16:7). 

King Saul was the result of looking at the outward appearance.  Now God selected a king based on the heart.  Eventually as Samuel listened with his spiritual ears to the voice of God, he selected David.   

So how do we lift up the eyes of our hearts to see more?  As disciplemakers, how do we help others increase the scope of their vision?  The following questions give us possibilities.

Lift up our eyes

• Where has God been?  Remember His works.

We need to remember God’s story line.  Scripture gives us examples of the visible meeting the invisible in biblical history.  History also tells the stories of men and women who through faith saw what others failed to see. 

• Where is God going?  Review His promises.

Reviewing God’s promises in Scripture can lift our eyes to the real but not yet.  It is like reading the final chapters of the story before we get there.  Knowing how the story ends helps us see more clearly in the present.

• Where is God now?  Reflect on Christ’s current role as ascended mediator, High Priest, and crowned King.  The book of Hebrews is a good place to start.

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. (St Augustine)

How is it that we can know anything?  Everything in our physical world is discovered via our sensory systems.

We are in a series called “Making Sense of Our Senses”.  In the last blog we discussed the five sensory systems used to experience reality both physically and spiritually.  When any one of them is underdeveloped or impaired, we lose our capacity to experience reality.  As with our physical senses, our spiritual senses need training and use if we are to live the Spirit controlled life God designed for us.

All of our five senses are linked together through our nervous system which is a complex structure that coordinates sensory information with our actions.  The nervous system permeates the entire body; it is hidden but essential. 

Faith in the life of a disciple functions much like the nervous system.  It is hidden, working behind the scenes to coordinate sensory input and actions.  Our spiritual life cannot function without it.  It is the part of our spiritual anatomy that links everything together.

The writer of Hebrews summarized its importance when he said, “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). 

Notice he is not saying that it is our faith that pleases God (although that would be true), he is saying that without faith we have no chance of pleasing God or even coming to Him.  Faith is a prerequisite for the spiritual senses to function in real life.  The examples of the men and women of faith written about in Hebrews 11, illustrates making decisions based on belief in something real but intangible.

Because faith functions like a spiritual nervous system in the life of a disciple, it merits some focused attention before exploring each of the spiritual senses individually. 

•   At its basic level, faith is believing in something we have not personally observed but still accept as true on the bases of the testimony of a trusted authority.  For example:

• We have faith in the records of historians regarding a past event or person.
• We have faith in the doctor’s assessment of our medical condition.
• We have faith in the scientist who claims the cosmos is expanding.
• We have faith in the teaching of a pastor or theologian regarding Christian doctrine.
• We have faith in the teaching of biblical authors who say that Jesus is the revelation of God.

When you think about it, much of what we believe can be attributed to faith.  In reality, we have very little firsthand knowledge of even the simple things in life … ones we take for granted.

Everyone lives by faith…even scientists

Faith is not just for religious people.  Everyone lives by the principle of faith.  Frequently secular voices try to demean and discredit religious people of faith by implying that Christians live in a fantasy world of faith whereas they live in a factual world.

However, no scientist has observed a black hole, yet it is almost a given in the scientific world that they exist.  Albert Einstein first predicted their existence back in 1916 with his general theory of relativity.  The term “black hole” was coined years later (1967) by the American astronomer John Wheeler. So how do we know that black holes exist?

Scientists can’t directly observe black holes with telescopes that detect x-rays, light, or other forms of electromagnetic radiation. We can, however, infer the presence of black holes and study them by detecting their effect on other matter nearby (science.nasa.gov).

Both black holes and dark matter are known by “inference” not direct observation.  The same is true for the spiritual dimension of faith.  Our faith is not based on fantasy or optimism but on inference from reliable documents. 

What we see depends on the lens we use.

The Hubble telescope just celebrated its 30^th year of service.  Pictures during that time have greatly expanded our knowledge of our expanding universe.  However, Hubble is primarily a visible light telescope which limits its ability to see into deep space through the clouds and gases present in the cosmos.  Currently scientists are super excited about the Webb telescope (scheduled to launch in 2021) that will be able to penetrate through this material by using a large infrared lens, revealing what has been there all along but hidden. 

Faith does not create reality but reveals it.  Though physically unseen the spiritual dimension is real.  Exploring the spiritual world by faith is like looking at the cosmos through an infrared telescope.  We see what has always been there but unknown when using only our physical sensory system. 

Spiritual faith “believes in order to see” verses “sees in order to believe”.

The apostle Thomas said he refused to believe in the resurrection unless he could actually see and touch the scars on Jesus’ body.  In other words, he insisted that he must “see in order to believe”.  A few days later Jesus accommodates him with a personal appearance in which Thomas physically touches Him and then declares his belief.  However, Jesus then identifies another pathway to knowing reality:  “Blessed are those who believe without (physically) seeing Me” (John 20:21).

An earlier example of belief leading to sight is the story of the people at Sychar in Samaria.  Jesus has an encounter with a woman from that village near a well (John 4).  When the woman returned to her village and reported her experience with Jesus, many of the Samaritans believed because of her testimony (faith).  Fueled by their initial faith, they went out to see Jesus personally.  Then they said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).  Their initial faith led to their own encounter with Jesus and increased clarity.

Faith is our means for perceiving spiritual reality; it is the nervous system that allows our spiritual senses to discern what is real though invisible.  Our faith must be implemented and our spiritual senses developed if we are to discover life in the dimension of the kingdom of God. 

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

For Reflection

1.  Think of examples of when your belief has led to greater sight.

2.  Why are we so resistant to living by faith?