Seeing the invisible
SEEING THE INVISIBLE
The topic sound paradoxical. Seeing the invisible. Our eyes are made to see objects, recognize them and identify them as they ought to be. But as we study the Bible i discovered that we are surrounded with another world, there is this spiritual world that is more real than this physical world that we can perceive with our five senses. The five senses were given unto us to communicate. Apostle Paul had a revelation on what i am talking about in this place.
2Co 4:18 KJV While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
This is one of the most amazing scripture ever read in the Bible. He said we are not looking at the things we see but we are looking at the things we can’t see. How do you look at the invisible? What are the things we see and the things we can’t see?
In this world we see both positive and negative things that affects us as Christians. There are wealth, pleasures, good things of life, marriages, career pursuit, travel and a lot of things that makes life to be pleasant.
On the other hand this life has its downsides too, it is full of sorrows, pains, troubles, wars, depressions, recession, assault, difficulties, financial problem, divorce and bunch of issues that makes living a great challenge.
We are prone to concentrate and focus our minds on the the things of this life. We see them everyday, we experience them and we are in torch with the reality of this life. We can be happy and joyful to the extent that we don’t feel anything again about God and we can be so focused on the negatives of this life that it can swallow us up. There are debts to be paid, children to be attended to, there are negative news about raging war, diseases, afflictions and poverty of this life that can take our attention. We can shift our focus away from God be so much concerned about those issues.
These things we see are temporary and transient. Whether they be positive things like blessings and beauty of life or negative things that bring sorrow and dissatisfying to our life. They are all temporary things and the fact is that they are passing away. Paul says the fashion of this world passes away.
We are enjoined to look at the things we are not seen. The things we can’t see are in the spirit world that the naked eyes can’t contemplate and perceive. In fact there is the unseeing you in you. We have to see the unseeing.
How do we see the unseen?
It is by our heart. Actually we see better with our heart than with our physical eyes. We can perceive things better. The means of seeing is by faith. Faith as defined by the writer of Heb 11 says that faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the substance of things we don’t see.
Hope as defined by many Bible dictionary is confidence expectation of good things. But i will like to add that hope is positive imagination. It is not the fantasy or day dreaming that we do but it is seeing with our heart and imagining things.
We have to see beyond the realm of the physical.
Rom 8:24-25 KJV 24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? 25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
The hope here is talking of the things not yet enjoyed, they are things of the future, things that we expect to have and utilized. Presently they are not with us but our heart believes it. The word “seeth” is talking about possession or enjoying, in order word what a man is enjoying, he cannot be said to still be hoping for it.
If you can see something then it is no longer hope but if we hope for that we don’t see then we have to wait in patience. A lot of people that don’t have character of patience definitely have no hope. Because if you have hope or can see the future then you will patiently wait for the accomplishment of it. Where there is a strong desire for an object, and a corresponding expectation of obtaining it – which constitutes true hope – then we can wait for it with patience. Where there is a strong desire without a corresponding expectation of obtaining it, there is impatience.
Faith is the means with which we see the invisible. Faith is the link between the spiritual world and the physical world. it is the connecting bridge. With the eyes of faith in our heart we are enabled to see what others cannot see and what we ourselves cannot see with our own physical eyesight.
It takes faith to see the spiritual realm. Jesus said the word that i speak unto you are life and spirit Jn 6:63. The word of God and the Spirit are one and the same thus the word becomes the window through which we see the spirit realm. Whatever the word says is what is obtainable in the spirit world.
Paul talked about the attribute of God in Rom 4: 17 that God call those things that be not as though they were. Actually this place what talking about creation in Gen 1, God saw darkness and light but He focus on light and called it out. He saw Abraham having many children and changed his name and started calling him Abraham which means father of many long before Isaac was conceived. What He saw He gave expression to it.
Elijah and Jezebel
After the conquest on Mount Carmel where more than four hundred worshipper of Baal were killed. Jezebel got a wind of what transpired and sent a message to Elijah.
1Ki 19:2-3 KJV 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time. 3 And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.
The Bible said when Elijah saw that. What did Elijah see? Elijah saw beyond the paper or the note sent by Jezebel, he saw himself dead, he saw the blood flow and he concluded that it was finished. The result of that was that Elijah abandoned the crusade that has just started, the revival of the nation from idolatry was abandoned and everything went back to the way it used to be. All because Elijah saw differently. If he had seen himself the way God saw him as the revivalist and a champion of restoration if he would have stayed back. God that delivered him and used him will still be able to deliver him from the hand of the woman.
Elisha and Gehazi
2Ki 6:16 KJV And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
Under today analysis, one would have hold Elisha responsible as giving false statement because here were they you can count one and two and yet he says they that be with them were more than they that be with the Syrian armies who were in their thousands. What Elisha was saying was beyond the comprehension of Gehazi who saw just himself and his master. Elisha prayed that God will open the eyes of the boy so that he can see the unseen. When he saw the invisible, he saw the mountain full of chariots of fire with horses. It was not when his eyes got opened that the horses came, they were there all the time, it was just that Gehazi like many of us are unable to see the invisible.
Stephen looked up at heaven
When Stephen was making his oratory speech the Bible says that the heart of the people were cut and that is what the truth can do. He looked up.
Act 7:55 KJV But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
He focused his attention on heaven, he saw beyond the accusation leveled against him and of course heaven opened and he saw the revelation of Jesus standing to receive him. H e was the first person to die for his faith. Even when he was been stoned, he should have look at his persecutors and focus on the pain but the Bible says that Stephen looked up.
Jesus looked up when He wanted to feed 5000men
Mar 6:41 KJV And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.
They presented the five loaves of bread unto Jesus. That was all they could lay their hands on. There was no way that five loaves of bread could satisfy five thousand men excluding women and children in the natural. The Bible says that Jesus looked up. What was He looking up for and why did He look up in the first place?
The Greek word for “looked up” is “anablepo” and it means to look up, to recover (lost) sight, Strong’s Definition: to look up ; by implication to recover sight: – look (up), see, receive sight.
The Lord looked up and saw beyond the five loaves, He saw by faith the loaves going round and feeding the multitude. He saw differently. He saw solution.
The Lord blessed what He had rather than complaining about the insufficiency of the loaves of bread, if only we can stop cursing our little supply but look up and see it flourishing, being in abundance and in much supply, things will take a different shape.
If we look down we will see ourselves, problems and other people with their unbelief but when we raise our eyes up not just looking physically upwards but seeing the invisible then what happen to the disciples would happen. We will see miracles.
When He wanted to raise Lazarus from dead.
Joh 11:41 KJV Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
He lifted up His eyes while He was at the tomb of Lazarus, why? I believe that calling back the dead is not done in the natural, it has to be beyond the person. Jesus looked up and saw beyond His natural ability, He saw the dead man coming back to life effortlessly. Others there were seen a four day man that would be stinking but Jesus saw differently and so He shouted and called him as if you are calling someone at the back of the house. Lazarus came out.
Paul saw differently in the boat
Paul was been taken to Rome for his defence but despite his warning to the boat owners and the captains, that the voyage will be with hurt they refused to listen to Paul and embarked on the journey. It was not too long when they started that the tempest arose and they have to lightened the boat by throwing away some of the goods yet they were in total darkness for many days, they couldn’t see, the boat couldn’t be controlled and the Bible says all hope was lost.
Act 27:20- 20 And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.
They had negative imagination about the situation, they saw themselves perishing and the ship broken into pieces. But Paul decided to do something else.
Act 27: 21-22 But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. 22 And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship.
The Bible says after a long absence from them, Paul isolated himself to ponder on the whole scenario. This is not what God told him. Jesus had appeared to him and encouraged him and told him that he will stand to witness about Him in Rome, Act 23: 11. If the boat capsized then that vision will not take place. He recoiled into himself, he saw a different picture. He saw himself in Rome and defending the Gospel committed unto him, this present challenge will not be able to stop him. It was then he saw the vision of the angel speaking to him, Because of one that see differently than others God saved 276 people.
When we are bombarded and surrounded by troubles which ae contrary to what God has spoken into our heart, we need to go back to God, we need to see differently. We need to let hope paint a different picture in our heart and see the promises of God coming to pass. This will keep us moving forward in life towards our goal. If we can’t see our goal being achieved and see its completion in our heart, it will be easier to let go when there is opposition. But hope and positive imagination will keep us moving.
We have to learn to see differently, see much more than what others are seeing. Others may be seeing defeat, poverty, lack, insufficiency but we have to see pass that and see abundance, progress, life and joy.
It is our ability to see more than others and see the unseeing that defines our joy and happiness in this life. If you can see beyond the happenings around you, you will gain confidence, assurance and hope to face life because what we see is not all that life has to offer. There is something beyond the reach of the five senses.
There could be issues now, there could be problems and challenges of life now but can we see beyond that? Can we see the glory?
The Bible says the Lord Jesus endured the shame of the cross because of what He saw, i believe He saw you and i, He saw millions and millions of people that will accept Him as their Saviour. The Bible says in the book of Isaiah that He shall see the desires of His soul and be satisfied. He saw beyond the nails and the pain and the ridicule of the cross. There was something worthy and worth much more than the agony of the cross.
Heb 12:2 KJV Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
If we can just shift our focus and attention from the world and fix them on God things we change. Isiah says He shall keep him in perfect peace whose mind stays on thee that is whose imagination or hope stays or fix on God Is 26: 2. There would be peace and rest in life because we can see not only the promises but their accomplishment.
Many of us have a negative picture of ourselves, we see ourselves as failure, dejected, shameful, distorted, unfulfilled, incompetent. We see our spouses as people that can’t make it, they are not lovely. We see failure every where. what we see becomes our meditation and thinking day in and day out. And as the Bible says in the book of proverb 23: 7 that as a man thinks in his heart so is he. We just become our dominant thought. Our dominant thought becomes our self fulfilled prophecy in life.
2Co 3:18 KJV But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
The way to change things is to focus on the world of God where we see how God sees us, as we focus on what James call the law of liberty, we see ourselves differently, we call ourselves different names and we become what we see now.
Jas 1:25 KJV But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
Bible says we are transformed into the image we see. What we see in the word become who we become.
Many are sick but they never saw themselves healed, in fact they may hope and wish to be healed, some even plan their own funeral and the type of songs they should sing in their burial and yet they tell you they are believing to be healed. It won’t work that way. There are many that are poor and has financial challenge but all they see is economic failure. They listen to all the junks in the news and they believe them. When they talk about recession, they got their mind ready to experience difficulties and prepared for failure. We should not act that way. Our questions should be what does the word say? Here is the Doctor saying something about the diagnosis they did and he is here by pronouncing you sick. Even though he is acting professionally but he misses the point. The stethoscope can only check your physical body it can’t tell what is taking place in the real you. Isaiah says who will believe our reports? The choice is yours to believe what the Doctors says or what the word says. We walk by faith and not by observance or sight 2Cor 5: 7.
Can you see yourself married, have children, loved and be loving? Can you see business turning around? Do you see your church having double services every Sunday? What do you see? What you see is what you get.