Seeing God (part 2)

And so, “As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a
chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and
Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, ‘My
father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!’ And Elisha saw him
no more” (2 Kings 2:11–12).

Elijah’s requirement that Elisha see his departure had to do with one’s ability
to see what cannot be seen. “Elijah was a man like us,” James 5:17 says. His
power came not from latent or inherent human ability, but because his eyes were
fixed “on what is unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:18). That was the secret of his
influence. The issue in Elijah’s “test” was whether Elisha had learned that secret.

An ordinary man or woman standing in that place would have seen nothing
but the sudden disappearance of the prophet. As F. B. Meyer noted in
his book Elijah and the Secret of His Power, “To senses dulled by passion or
blinded by materialism, the space occupied by the flaming seraphim would
have seemed devoid of any special interest and bare as the rest of the
surrounding scenery.” But Elisha, an extraordinary man, saw the invisible hosts of God. He had learned from Elijah to fix his eyes “on what is unseen.” This was the secret of his enduring influence.

And so it is with us. There is a world that “lies around us like a cloud; a
world we do not see,” noted Harriet Beecher Stowe, another realm of reality,
more actual, more substantial than anything we can see, hear, touch, taste,
smell in this world. Faith is the means by which we gain access to this invisible
world. It is to the spiritual realm what the five senses are to the natural;
it is the means by which we grasp spiritual reality and bring it into the realm
of our experience. Our goal, then, is to “grow eyes,” to borrow a phrase from
George MacDonald.

And how do we grow eyes?

Simply put, “seeing” is believing. Seeing is faith, pure and simple. “Faith is
being . . . sure of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). “By faith, [Moses] left
Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is
invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). Faith is the indispensable element in all our work
for God. Without it we can do nothing.

Faith cannot be generated. It is a gift of God given in answer to prayer. Do
you want to “see” God in all His glory? Pray that the eyes of your hearts may
be enlightened that you may see . . . (see Ephesians 1:18).

Faith grows as we feed on God’s Word: “Faith comes from hearing the
message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans
10:17). Spiritual awareness is seeing everything through God’s eyes, hearing
with His ears. The test of our time in the Word of God is this: Has it enabled
us to see?

Faith is the product of obedience. Our sense of God’s presence is conditioned
by the purity of our hearts. “What you see,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “depends
a good deal on . . . what sort of person you are.” It is the pure in heart
who “see God” (Matthew 5:8).

What’s needed is an undivided and uncompromising devotion to Christ,
singleness and simplicity of purpose to love Him and follow Him. “Purity
of heart is to will one thing,” Kierkegaard said, and that one thing is God’s
will. Uncontaminated devotion to Christ is the source of insight into the unseen
world. It enables perceptions that others cannot achieve. Such men and
women glimpse the workings of God where others detect nothing.

Lord, open our eyes that we may see . . . (Psalm 119:18).

Taken from Seeing God, © 2006 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566, Grand Rapids MI 4950l. All rights reserved.