Seeing the Invisible (6)

Below is a note I sent a friend this morning, this is what "seeing the invisible" looks like in my life and marriage. I'm reminded of Hebrews 11:27, Mose endured as seeing Him who is invisible. 

In thinking about our conversation yesterday…

 

Paul writes that we are to endure hardship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 2:3). I suppose this is the way I was raised in Christ, raised to lose my life for Him and others (Mark 8:34 – 38). Not that I’ve always lived this way, but it is the way I was taught. In addition to Watchman Nee’s Normal Christian Life, I think I may have given you Andrew Murray’s Abide in Christ, and I think I gave you Discipleship on the Edge by Darrell W. Johnson. None of these books are focused on “me, myself, and I,” they are all centered on the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ.

 

While I don’t think of having a particular life verse, if I had to choose one it might be Galatians 2:20, and a life passage would be Mark 8:34 – 38. When I was in the Army (and I imagine it was the same for you in the Navy), we never began our days with a group hug and our sergeants asking us how our feelings were that day. We were there to serve, to obey, to function as a team – we were on mission.

 

So with us…we are here to worship God, build one another up in Christ, and go to the world with the Gospel – the stool has three legs.

 

Our greatest temptation, perhaps, is to avoid the Cross. Friends do not let friends avoid the Cross. Friends do not counsel friends to escape the Cross. Peter insisted that Jesus not go to the Cross and Jesus said, “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting our mind on the things of God, but man” (Matthew 16:23).

 

I was never taught, nor have I thought, that God was interested in making me a better version of myself, He is interested in bringing me to the end of myself and transforming me into the image of Jesus Christ as a new creation in Him (Rom. 8:29; Gal. 2:20; 6:14; Col. 3:1 – 4).

 

While Vickie and I realize that there is emotional and psychological trauma and stress associated with what we have experienced – we do not deny that for a moment – we also realize that we must look to Jesus to walk with us through this. No doubt He uses others to walk with us – Paul and his friends “despaired even of life” (2 Cor. 1:8) but they also saw God working in them for the blessing of others (2 Cor. 1:4, 9).

 

In addition, we both know that we are closer to leaving this pilgrimage today than we were yesterday – and we are living in the light of that knowledge; we will be in the Holy Presence of Jesus sooner rather than later – we are in the portal that transitions us from this life into the glorious Life to Come in Christ and with the saints.

 

Around 1999 I was visiting a friend, Dan Smick, in the hospital in Boston. Dan was married with two young sons, both under 7 years old. Dan’s liver was failing as a result of cancer treatments and he was hoping for a liver transplant – in essence Dan was dying, he would go to be with Christ in a few months. Dan was the director of the Marketplace Network in Boston, a ministry similar to Needle’s Eye in Richmond.

 

As I entered the hospital room Dan was asleep, so I sat down in a chair next to his bed and was quiet. When he awoke and saw me he smiled and said, “O Bob, I’m glad you’re here. I was just thinking about some ways to share Jesus with others. Let me talk to you about them.”

 

I will never forget this. Dan was dying, sure there was still hope for healing, but it was slim. Dan had a wife and two young sons, and he loved them deeply. Dan could have been feeling sorry for himself on many levels, but instead he was thinking of how to share Jesus with others.

 

When we face hardships, when we face pressure and pain, the question should not be, “How can I get out of this?” It should be, “How does Jesus want to reveal Himself to me through this? How can I share Jesus with others through this? How is God using this to transform me into the image of His Son?”

 

I really can’t imagine living any other way.

 

Just some thoughts…

 

Bob

Seeing the Invisible (5)

 

 

“We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

 

“For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

 

Returning to 2 Corinthians 4:6 (see second reflection in this series), when Paul sees creation, he sees through and beyond creation to God. Creation becomes a sacramental experience in that through creation God comes to Paul and Paul comes to God.

 

“That which is know about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understand by the things that are made, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19 – 20).

 

As we have considered, when Paul read Genesis Chapter One he saw through the account of physical creation into the invisible, and seeing the invisible he saw the New Creation in Christ Jesus, he saw God shining in the darkness of our hearts to bring the light of the knowledge of His glory in Jesus Christ.

 

In Romans, we read that if we knew how to “see” creation, a vision which has been robbed from us (at least in the West), we would see not only the power of God but also His Divine Nature, or as some translations have it – the Godhead. Paul writes that these things are clearly seen. We can hardly say that today, whether we are speaking of the world or the professing church.

 

It is not the norm for us in the West to deeply see and understand God when pondering creation. Many of us see creation as something to be dominated, used, and exploited, and many of us simply don’t care about creation unless it affects us financially. This is not the same as seeing a Creator in creation, this is about us gaining understanding about the very Nature of God as we ponder and experience Creation.

 

An irony of this is that while there is a segment of the professing church that insists on the world being created in six 24-hour days, that this segment does not typically teach us to see in and beyond Creation to the Divine Nature, it does not connect Creation with experiencing God, it does not connect Creation with having an deep internal knowledge of God. Paul writes, “That which is known about God is evident within them.”

 

To believe that God created everything in six 24-hour days, without also seeing the Nature of God in and through Creation, without also knowing the One who shines in our hearts, without becoming New Creations in Jesus Christ, means nothing. It may, in fact, be dangerous. It may be dangerous because it may lead us believe we are something when we are nothing, and it can certainly be dangerous for others to think that believing in a certain Creator is akin to knowing the Trinity, that it is the equivalent of a relationship with God.

 

This is much the same as when some folks place emphasis on the historicity of Noah’s Ark. Believing that the account of Noah’s Ark is historical, whatever you think the scope was, means little or nothing if we do not know Jesus as our Ark, if we are not bringing others into the Ark of Jesus Christ.

 

If we have not encountered Jesus Christ and have come to know Him, if we are not New Creations in Him, it doesn’t matter how often we’ve had an “ark encounter,” for we are still seeing things that are visible. The things that are seen are temporal, including Noah’s Ark, including the present form of creation, there is a deeper reality – beyond the veil – for us to see and in which we are called to live in Christ.

 

I may convince the world that there was a real Noah’s Ark and a real Flood, but if I have not convinced the world that Jesus is the only Ark that matters, and that they must seek refuge and life in Him, then I have convinced people of nothing of eternal consequence.

 

Psalm 19 portrays the complementary witness of Creation and the Word, Creation came through the Word and the Word is revealed through Creation. In verses 1 – 6 we see Creation speaking, in verses 7 – 11 we see the Word, in verses 12 – 14 we see our response.

 

“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (vv. 1- 2). In other words, there is a continuous manifestation of the glory of God in creation. However, most of us are not oriented to Creation, we see the natural world as something to be consumed, not as something of which we are stewards. Hence, as we kill Creation we kill ourselves, our children, our grandchildren. What we have is never enough, we must always have more, we must always consume; and if we consume one another and consume the planet – so be it. We have gone mad.  

 

Last year as I read through Psalms, I noted every psalm that referred to Creation. This included the heavens, the sky, trees, animals, the oceans; it was comprehensive. While I may have missed something, I found that 115 psalms, out of 150, incorporated Creation in their prayers and songs to God. If we were to remove all references to Creation from Psalms, Psalms as we know it would cease to exist.  This is how central Creation was to our fathers and mothers who walked with God – this is how central Creation has been to the saints who have centered their worship in Psalms through the ages.

 

In and through Creation those who have come before us saw God. In and through Creation prior generations have come to God and have known God coming to them. While there is most certainly an experiential element to this, that is, we experience God, there are also elements of wisdom and the knowledge of God, hence Paul’s statement in Romans 1:20 that we can know the “invisible attributes” and “eternal power and divine nature” of God through Creation.

 

No doubt there are regions of the world where men and women and young people continue to see and know God through His Creation, but we in the West have sealed ourselves off from this precious communion and knowledge. We have erected an iron dome over our collective consciousness, we have hung (ironically) an iron curtain over our minds and raised multiple generations in this darkness – and this very much includes the professing church.

 

Paul looked at Creation and saw the invisible, he saw that which is eternal.

 

What do we see?