Mareh: Seeing The Visions of God 2

Bitterness completely cripples the believer from fulfilling the mandate of God or seeing as God sees

Bitterness colours the vision of a believer, it distorts their sight and changes their perspective of the one they are bitter against

I remember a lady who was my friend as an undergraduate

Together we were topping the Mass Communication department academically

We had this course called Photo Journalism

It required us to take a lot of pictures

This lady took the camera to the female hostel and took certain compromising pictures of ladies in the female hostel without their consent

She did it out of spite

She was a born-again Christian, raised in a particular denomination that demonizes many things relating to dressing and fashion

Many of the ladies in the female hostel didn’t share the same worldview as her

She saw them as sinners and would act towards them in a certain way that left much to be desired

It got to a head one day that two of the ladies came to me to report her saying it was so bad that if they sat on her bed, she would say they were defiling her bed with their sinful hands; that she did not know where the hands had touched or what it had held etcetera…

Nobody could touch anything that belonged to her without being labeled and cussed out as a sinner defiling her holiness!

When she wanted to develop the pictures, she gave them to me to give my photographer

My photographer did as he was paid to do and handed the pictures over to me

I saw some of the pictures and I was shocked

So I removed them and gave her only the normal pictures

I was a campus fellowship leader and I didn’t think it was right that she would have such pictures of fellow ladies for any reason

She became violent towards me

Locked my shirt, pulled my tie, and assaulted me for it

She reported me to her boyfriend when I insisted I would be reporting the assault and her “pictures” to the school authority

The boyfriend (A fellow Christian brother whom I respected very much) came to me preaching the love of Jesus and how I must forgive her and not report the matter to the school authority

I let it go

Two years later, the relationship between her and her boyfriend hit a brick wall

She came to the BSF secretariat one day, in the afternoon and locked her boyfriend’s shirt

She claimed she had spent a total of 12,050 Naira on him in the four years they had dated and she wanted her money back

We all pleaded and begged

She didn’t budge

The boyfriend led her to the ATM and paid her back

Every penny of the money

The relationship was over but she was not done

Anytime the boyfriend mounted the altar to minister, she would stand behind the congregation making all sorts of noise about him and outrightly cursing him

I saw her doing it one day and I was like…Wow!

She stood up and started shouting “He is an unfaithful man and He is preaching the gospel of Jesus, hahahahah!”

Wow!

She stopped seeing the grace of God on his life, and the glory of God in him

All she saw was someone she couldn’t have her way with

(They parted because she wanted him to convert to her denomination and he said he could never do that The woman was supposed to move to the man’s church and not the other way round)

The bitterness changed her

It changed her perception of him and also her perception of herself

Bitterness can change the trajectory of your life completely if you let it

Bitterness makes people try hard to prove themselves

Nobody who tries to prove himself ever succeeds

The reason you try to prove yourself is the reason you are down

You don’t have to prove yourself to anybody

Proving yourself is a complete abandonment of God’s plan and purpose for you

It can lead you to run another man’s race just so you can show them you can do better than they are doing or know better than they know

You will completely make a detour from God’s purpose for your life by trying to prove that you can run another man’s race better than them and side-track your own destiny

Everything about you will become about what others are doing

Your calling has nothing to do with other people

Become great for you and for the fulfilment of the gospel of Christ but don’t set yourself up as someone who is forever in competition with others or on a quest to prove to them that you are either better than them or as good as them in ministry

Such a focus is driven by the flesh

When we start to do things to prove ourselves, we start to pray to impress people

The measure of powerful prayer is not by how long you pray but by the result you bring forth in the place of prayer

I was having a conversation with a brother recently, he said he saw a video on YouTube where a man said he had been praying for seven hours every night for many years

The same man then said If he did not do that the enemies would attack him

That was such a sorry thing to hear

We do not pray so that the enemy won’t attack us

We dwell in Zion, the city of the living God

Where will the attack come from?

We pray that we might know the will of God and establish this in the world of men to bring glory to the Kingdom of Jesus

We do not pray to show others we can pray or that we have superior tongues or a loud voice

We pray so that God’s kingdom is established on the earth through us

Just because you can put many verses of scripture into your prayer does not mean God heard you or that you are getting results

Many pray so that people can clap for them and be impressed by their prayer

This is why praying in the Holy Spirit is very important

If you pray in the Holy Ghost nobody hears what you are saying and therefore you impress nobody

However, I saw some churches doing tongues competitions and tongues vocabulary contest

This is very carnal

Nobody can rate a particular tongue as superior to another since it is not by the sound or the syllable that the spirit imparts his gifting upon us

It is by the heart and the sincerity of the believer in the place of communion

Many are standing on the altar, preaching self and not preaching “Jesus”

Let your goals be- “I will bring more souls to the gospel and not, I will preach better than someone or preach someone into the ground”

Once you become competitive, you end up trying to win people’s approval and their validation

I see this in the church today and it is not right

The only approval you need is the approval of God

When you are upright with God, people will embrace you

You do not need to fight for anyone to receive you, people will just do so

Saul was rejected by God because he wanted the approval of the army and not the approval of God

The approval of men is usually the killer of men

The only one we need to be approved of is God

You can peaceably disagree with people

Once you live the way Christ lives your life becomes alluring and endearing to people

Just live the Christ life and you will attract the love and joy of men naturally

If you have found yourself with this kind of a mindset, you need to make peace and clear out the debris

The life of a believer should be a simple life

How to Gain Clear Vision

1 Samuel 16: 6 When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.”

7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

8 Then Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “The Lord has not chosen this one either.” 9 Jesse then had Shammah pass by, but Samuel said, “Nor has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, “The Lord has not chosen these.” 11 So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?”

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered. “He is tending the sheep.”

Samuel said, “Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives.”

12 So he sent for him and had him brought in. He was glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features.

Then the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; this is the one.”

13 So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. Samuel then went to Ramah.

Do not look at outward appearances

Look at people the way God looks at them because God looks at the heart

It is true that only God knows the heart of men

The word of God is the only thing that can discern the heart of men

This means there is a sight beyond the physical

There is another eye that sees beyond the physical, and you have that eye or vision, when you look through that eye or vision you will see as God sees

Psalm 32: 8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

(Note it is not eyes, it is eye and this has nothing to do with ocultism or demonology)

Imagination is the eye of the mind

Visualization is the eye of the mind

Eyes cannot see without light

If your eyes are single, your whole body will be full of light

To be single-minded or to be single-eyed means you have focused your eyes only on God

Looking onto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith

There is a way God sees

He doesn’t see our shortcomings or our reproach

He doesn’t see our frowns and disapprovals

He does not see our cantankerous attitudes and preconceived notions

He sees Christ in us

All the time

Galatians 3: 23 Before the coming of this faith,[j] we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ”

This is how God sees the saints, this is how God sees you, this is how God sees your fellow believers and this is how you must see them too

If God is leading you with his eye, it means He has given that eye to you for you to see

You must see as God sees

This was what God was telling Prophet Samuel

Prophet Samuel then changed the law of how he saw things, by switching to the eye of the Spirit which sees the heart rather than dwell on the physical eye which does not see beyond the physical

Logic can’t help you when you have to look at somebody’s heart

Have you met a couple before who professed so much love for each other that you can vouch they will never break up only for you to see either of them a week later and they are saying terrible things about each other?

The physical eyes make a mess of matters of the heart

In the same vein, two people may not even connect at first on a physical level

They are not enemies

They may even be friends or colleagues

Both of them may not even think in the light of being together as a couple but as they work together they realize they share many things in common and their hearts are attuned to the right frequencies and sometimes they fall in love from within before they both realize it and then begin to make adjustments and accommodations to be together physically

The heart can see what the eyes cannot see most times

You may see someone who looks right and dresses right and talks right and moves with the right people and yet feel the person is not to be trusted or loved or liked or befriended or loved in a certain way without any reason

Your heart just does not sync or gel or agree with such a person and you can’t really say why…

Months or weeks down the line something happens and you realize why you didn’t feel at ease with such a person

Please don’t be one of those believers who see what they want to see and then claim God showed them something

I remember the case of a young man who was in a relationship of five years and suddenly the relationship was not going in the direction either of the couple wanted

The lady wanted to be married almost immediately because she had waited for many years

The young man got an opportunity to travel abroad to study and live but it was for only him and the lady would have to wait for some time before he could bring her over and then marry her in the country he was going

The lady issued an ultimatum, “Marry me before you travel”

The young man felt if he got married to her before traveling and things didn’t work out as planned on time she would just be stuck and that was not what he wanted

He decided to take It to the Lord in prayer

On Sunday, a minister of the gospel (invited) came to his church and prophesied about the end of a season and the beginning of another season for a young man

After the service, the young man’s friends gathered around him and convinced him the prophecy was for him

He broke up with the lady and moved on

It was the right thing for him to do but it was not because of the prophecy

It had nothing to do with the prophecy

It was the logical direction their relationship was heading

He could not afford to have the kind of wedding the lady wanted and fund his journey at the same time

God shouldn’t be the scapegoat of our decision-making

Many of us would say “God said “ simply because we do not want to be held responsible for our own actions

We must change this mindset from today if we intend to see as God sees!

Psalm 103

Of David.

1 Praise the Lord, my soul;

All my inmost being, praise his holy name.

2 Praise the Lord, my soul,

And forget not all his benefits—

3 who forgives all your sins

And heals all your diseases,

4 who redeems your life from the pit

And crowns you with love and compassion,

5 who satisfies your desires with good things

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

6 The Lord works righteousness

And justice for all the oppressed.

Never look at a believer through the lens of their sins if you want to see as God sees

It does not mean you will be ignorant of their actions but you will never see God’s true purpose for them if you look at them through the lens of their mistakes, choices, jobs, physical circumstances, situations, conditions or shortcomings in life

When God looks at you, he sees you purely through the lens of Grace

Understand that everybody has made mistakes and yet this does not define how God sees them

This is how you must also see

When you look at a situation or somebody, please see past their past sins, faults, failures, mistakes, and shortcomings

If you don’t do this, you will not be able to see as God sees

God dwells in indelible light in which there is no shadow of turning or variableness

The eyes of God are single

Are your eyes single

Do you see light in His light?

Do you have a record of faults and wrongs?

You have to let it go.

When you are consumed by the love of God, you will see as He sees

Love is the key to seeing as God sees

God is love.

-GSW-