I think for the most part most Christians live far below where they should be. One big problem is they don’t truly understand what it means to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Armchair theologians and scholars love complicating the issue, making it something mystical that only they can understand (and for a big donation you can buy their book and you can understand too, right?). Walking by faith and not by sight is pretty simple really. Walking by sight implies what you can comprehend in your flesh using your five senses and what you can figure out and comprehend with your mind. Walking by faith is simply looking at things like God sees them and walking out life from His perspective. Walking by faith is more often than not though against everything in us that makes sense. Letting go instead of holding on, surrendering to be victorious, humbling ourselves to be lifted up and the list goes on. God’s ways are not our ways. His ways are high above anything we can comprehend. In Isaiah 55:8-9 we read: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” But at the same time, they are not out of reach and can be comprehended on a spiritual level. It is a paradox of sorts. I’m not in any way saying you can understand on a level that you could put it into words but there is a place in all of us that is built in where we just know that we know that we know. If you are truly born again your redeemed spirit can understand things on a level that cannot be put into words but at the same time do not have to be put into words. It is a place of clarity and discernment where everything just makes sense. You understand evil and good and why the material world is what it is. It is as if you are out in space looking at the swirling storms on the Earth’s surface rather than being in them. Have you ever experienced a moment like this? Perhaps it was in prayer so intense that you didn’t feel you were even in the world but lifted to a heavenly place, a temple, a house of the holy…and though a holy place you felt odd even calling it that for it defied all labels and seemed the most natural place to be.
Can there be a moment so intense it is as if all energy, all perception becomes one? A moment when there is seemingly no distinction of present or past or future, of time or space, even darkness or light. All your senses meld into one intense sensitivity with no limitation. Is there a place we so meld into the mind of God that we see things with such clarity and have no need to label or identify anything? Just clarity, a clear understanding of all things. Not in the sense that you could put it into words and explain everything but just truly plugged into a source so full of light, so intense you become one with all things, one with God. Not above Him or equal with Him just One with Him. Clarity, you can’t put into words, clarity, that if you had to explain to someone they would not understand anyway. A moment in time yet not of time that everything just suddenly makes sense.
God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 4:13). He wants us to live out our lives in a place where He is. It is in His presence that everything makes sense and is understood. That doesn’t mean He is going to explain it on a level our finite minds can grasp. And it certainly does not mean He is going to compromise on who He is and who it is all about to satisfy us.
What it does mean is though we live in this physical world He does not want our comprehension limited to physical and mental understanding. He is trying to lift us up to a level where HE is rather than compromise to a level where humans are. It is even written in Ephesians 2:6 that He “has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Paul goes on in Ephesians 3:8-12 to explain, “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.”
Before we continue on though let me just stop and make absolutely clear that I am not speaking of some extra-Biblical revelation. No, if something is from God it will never, ever contradict His Word, the Bible. The Bible is our standard for judging all things whether they be of God or not.
Now, back to my thought. As human beings, we seem determined to put everything in a test tube. We have to be able to explain everything in scientific terms. But you will never see God on a slide under a microscope. We have got to get to that place where we live every moment in the presence of God. We have got to stop institutionalizing God! Do you know what I mean when I say that? We institutionalize God when we say He is in this but not in that –or- He is here but not there –or- He is in this moment but not every moment -or- He is in this denomination but not in that denomination, or even worse, He is in this political party but not in that political party. Or, how about He is in church but not in my private life? Whether you like it or not He is everywhere (omnipresent) and in everything. Psalms 139:8-10 puts it this way: “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” He is there when you watch TV or work on your job or go to school. He is there when you hug your spouse or yell at them. Whatever you do in secret or openly He is there, He sees it all (Matthew 6:4, 6, 18). God is not some wind-up doll we can take down from the shelf when we need Him.
As believers, we need to live like He is in every moment of our lives. This doesn’t come natural. It is something we have to nurture. We have to practice the presence of God. We need to see Him in all things whether it is the laugh of a child or a cry for help. Learn to see Him in the good and the bad. Does God cause bad or evil? No, He does not, but even during bad times instead of focusing on the bad, search for God in the midst of it. Where is He at? What does He want you to learn in this situation? How does He want you to react in this situation? He is there. It seems to be human nature when something bad is going on to assume God is not there. How many times have you heard it said, “God where were you when ________ (you fill in the blank)?.” He never leaves us or forsakes us (Hebrews 13:5).
We miss so much richness and meaning in our lives because we don’t see Him in everything. 2 Kings, chapter 6 gives an interesting account that illustrates this. The city where Elisha lived was surrounded by Syrians. Elisha and his servant looked upon the same circumstances but notice how differently they saw it: “Therefore sent he [The King of Syria] thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, a host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! How shall we do? And he answered Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” You see what I mean? Elisha was looking through God’s eyes, the servant was not. What do you see when you are surrounded on all sides by the problems of this life? Do you see yourself hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded by the enemy or do you look beyond what appears to be and see, like Elisha, did that “they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” Romans 8:35-39, I think, makes this abundantly clear that we are not alone or forsaken. : “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I have heard it said that if you take the letters spelling fear that they can stand for False Evidence Appearing Real. That is all most of our fears are, just the devil putting up that big old magnifying glass called fear and worry and making things look like a bigger problem than they really are. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.” ‘Substance’, ‘evidence’, these are words speaking of something real, something solid, something you can count on and believe in. So fear, in a sense, is false faith or, more accurately, a faith in the wrong thing. What is real and solid and will win in the end is usually not what we first see, we have to look a little deeper, use our spirit eyes. In other words, don’t let initial appearances and reactions rule. Calm yourself for a moment. Ask God to let you see what HE wants you to see. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (Hebrews 11:3).
And it isn’t just about overcoming problems, that’s part of it, but believers miss out on a whole dimension of joy if they don’t see God in ALL they do. He wants you to be one with Him, to see things like He sees them. He doesn’t want you to see yourself hopelessly blown about by the storms of life. He wants you to look down on the storms like an astronaut viewing the Earth’s surface from space. Jesus Himself prayed, “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” (John 17:11, 20-23).
Live in the moment you are in. It is when we look back or when we look too far ahead that we get in trouble. The past is over: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.: (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are not even promised tomorrow: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matthew 6:34). So, what do we have but the moment? In each and every moment find that moment in time and space that is beyond time and space, beyond how things ‘appear’, that moment of clarity…then stand in that place. That is where you will find God. That is where you will find peace and victory.
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