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Gleanings From The Word

Category: Encouragement

  • What Do You See? Opening our spiritual eyes.

    What Do You See? Opening our spiritual eyes.

    stylized Adam and Eve hiding in the garden

    We aren’t very far into the Bible when things go terribly wrong. You know the story.

    Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:1-8 esv

    Now, prior to this, both Adam and Eve walked in the garden in a close personal relationship. They knew the Lord as intimately and personally as it is possible for a person to know Him. They understood His love, compassion and mercy.

    What changed? The obvious answer is they sinned. Yet, what moved them from joy to fear?

    With sin-filled eyes, we cannot see God as He truly is. They now saw God through distorted lenses and created a harsh God of their own imaginings. It’s what we do.

    Some see God as a Monty Python-like foot ready to stomp on us for any sin. Others see Him as a cosmic genie there to grant our every wish and desire. For some people, he’s a doddering old man who either cannot see our sins or, if he does, is unable or unwilling to do anything about them.

    There are those who pretend that He doesn’t exist. The great civilizations of the past imagined Him as a pantheon of very flawed human-like capricious gods.

    The truth is that the God revealed to us in the Bible is none of those things. He is benevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. He loves us so much that Jesus came and died so that we could be restored into a right relationship with Him and be adopted into His family.

    He is too beautiful and wonderful for us to understand with our sin-filled minds. Even as believers whose sins have been atoned for do not yet see him clearly, but the day will come when we will. He will open our spiritual eyes to see the truth.

    For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:32

    I can hardly wait. What about you?

    Be blessed

    Kevin

    Gleanings From The Word – Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life. 

    On a similar theme

    Do you see things through the eyes of faith?
  • Last Leaves – Feeling alone, but never alone.

    Last Leaves – Feeling alone, but never alone.

    tree with most of the leaves already fallen on a foggy morning

    Driving home from the pool yesterday, the lyrics “all the leaves  are brown, and the sky is grey” were going through my head.

    The sky was grey yesterday, and it rained off and on all day. The leaves aren’t all grey, but most trees have shed them all. A few lonely leaves are holding on for dear life, but every little gust of wind shakes some more of them off the tree.

    Sometimes, we feel like those remaining leaves. We think that we’re the last faithful Christians left. That thought might apply to our own faith walk or our denomination/affiliation compared to others.

    It feels that no one else wants to do the work; finding volunteers is like searching for hen’s teeth or frog hairs. You can’t find anyone to study the Scriptures or pray with.  The weight of the gospel message rests fully on our shoulders, and we fear that God’s work won’t get done if we don’t do it.

    Of course, that’s wrong thinking, and we’re not the first people in the world to have those thoughts. We are never alone.

    In 1 Kings, we see God work incredible miracles through Elijah, but he feels alone. I recommend reading 1 Kings 18-19 to get the full story, but I want to hit on a few relevant verses.

    Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men.” 1 Kings 18:22

    God works in miraculous ways to defeat all the priests of Baal, which angers Jezebel, the Queen, so Elijah runs away into the desert to hide.

    While in the desert, he hears the still small voice of God and complains.

    He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” 1 Kings 19:14

    The Lord responds by giving Elijah a task to anoint a new king over Israel and reminds him that,

    Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. 1 Kings 19:18

    That 7,000 might be a literal number, but it’s more likely to refer to many more believers than Elijah can comprehend. Seven is the number of completeness, and 1,000 often suggests large numbers. Either way, Elijah is far from alone in doing God’s work.

    We are never the only ones, no matter how we feel. God’s church is larger than we ever imagine. Things are happening that we may never see. We are never alone.

    God’s tasks will get accomplished with us, despite us, or through us. We are accountable to God for our own obedience, not the obedience of others.

    He is the one with power and makes things happen.

    Joyfully do what God calls you to and let Him worry about what others are, or are not doing. He’s got it covered.

    Hallelu Yah (Praise God)

    Be blessed, 

    Kevin

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