Friends,  One’s faith walk involves far more than meets the eye … at least, it should.  Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #886

November 7, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Unseen Beauty

By Bob Walters

“… we fix our eyes on not what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” – 2 Corinthians 4:18

Life in this earthly realm is soaked in measurements, comparisons, and definitions, i.e., the temporal, finite, and quantitative environment of the “seen.”

For many if not most folks, the “seen” suffices for the totality of all that exists.  This idea that an unseen divine realm – heaven, the Kingdom, whatever one may call it – is the actual home of unerring reality intrudes on “common sense” and threatens one’s comforting, if prideful, personal supremacy: “God can’t improve what I already have.”

That the eternal birthplace, generator, and residence of truth, beauty, purpose, and love is seen only with a believing heart and faithful discerning eye is too far outside the box of possibility.  “Prove it,” screams the world, “Your faith puts you in a box.”

“I am free,” boasts the non-believer, unaware that it is the measured, temporal, earth-only life he inhabits that is the confining box.  There is plenty of structure in the divine; not only more than meets the eye, but beauty the eye is unequipped to handle.

What kind of structure? “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor 1:18)

When you know, you know.  God, creating us in His own image, gave us a mind to think and create and love … and to seek Him and find Him by trusting His grace and living in His truth.  Most of that was muddled until the arrival and resurrection of Jesus Christ, proving the prophecy of an age when man would meet God, face to face.

The trouble humanity has these days is the self-inflicted culmination of several hundred years of philosophy separating man into pieces – his body, his will, his soul – that negates our willingness to accept the fullness of God’s grace.  We can see our “natural” state and for better or worse – or for death – we deny the unseen eternal quality of marrying our life to God’s through Jesus’s bride, the church. It’s very real.

I can see that divine life just fine, I think, as can many people I know. I can read the Bible, I know the love of Christian fellowship, I know the peace of Spiritual grace, and when I look around with my physical eyes, there is nothing I see that I think “just happened” without purpose or God’s will, and sadly, too often, by Satan’s evil design.

I once read a Bible commentary that made a compelling point that “eternity” is not a measure of anything, but that eternity is the quality of God’s life, not a quantity.  I liked that, and was all the definition I needed.  We can only glimpse God’s life on this side of reality in faith, and without faith, the message of the cross is foolish indeed.

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Cor 4:4).

This mind God gave us … it isn’t just to learn obedience, but to learn to think freely and in truth.  It is how we find God, who by the way I am convinced is also always searching for us.  But while secular humanity is “all about thinking,” missing scripture means you are missing truth … and in the process, missing Jesus.  There is no way back.

The ancient Jews had it a little easier, with a well-defined Law just for them and God’s faithful promise to save all mankind through their chosen nation Israel.  A life of faith in Jesus is not so well defined, despite the clarity of scripture and the abundance of historical evidence of His life, death, and truth.  Modern man stumbles and complicates.

Life in Christ is a beautiful thing; but the brightness is in our hearts, not our eyes.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) prays Ephesians 1:18: “Open the eyes of my heart.”