“Seeing The Unseen” (Part II)

Date: 8/31/2011
Speaker: Pastor Johnny Moore

 

Stop for a moment and take a look at your life. Do you like what you see or if you could, would you make some changes?  The key to changing what you see around you is to change what you see within you. A wise man once said, “We may not be able to choose what happens to us, but we can choose what happens in us.”

     The Apostle Paul gives us some insight into this in II Corinthians 4. We find here where Paul had experienced some difficulty, but he did not allow these problems to determine his outcome. He said (verse 4), “We are hard pressed on every side yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…” What was it that caused him to “keep going when the going got tough?” It was his choice to “see the unseen,” to “see with his heart.”

The phrase “do not look” (verse 18) does not mean “to ignore,” but instead “do not keep looking at or gazing at.” The word “look” in this passage of scripture means “to take aim; to scope out or to scout; to consider or to make a goal.” Paul is telling us that if we choose to look at, gaze at, take aim at, scope out, or make a goal out of only what we see, we are hindering our own progress, and by doing so, limiting God in our lives.

Result #1—Your Faith Becomes Stagnant: Faith is something that is living, growing and moving. Faith reaches out to that which is not seen with the natural eye and brings it eventually into sight. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Jesus said it like this… “Therefore what things so ever you desire (things not seen yet) when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them” (Mark 11:24). When you choose only to see what is visible, your faith becomes stagnant.

 

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