You know, we live in a day when God and His word are taken too lightly, even by we who are named by His name–Christians. This ought not to be so. My husband loves BMWs. We always have at least one or two in our yard waiting for him to fix up. Our neighbor enjoys fixing cars, so my husband will prevail upon him to change our oil or fix our brakes. However, one thing about the BMWs, though Leon, our neighbor, changes the oil or fixes the brakes, he cannot get the lights that indicate the need for these changes to turn off, even after he performs the services.
Why? He is not an authorized BMW dealer. Only those authorized to deal with the BMWs have the tools that will turn off these indicator lights.
So is the Bible. It is the authorized truths of God with all the tools to turn off and on the indicator lights of our lives.
Yet we rather trust the doctors and the psychologists over our Manufacturer, our Authorized.
Dealer. We choose to believe CNN and NBC and all the other pundits who claim to know it all. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that it is wrong to go to the doctor or the psychologist or listen to the news or allow your neighbor to change your oil.
What I am saying, however, is that we can no longer depend on all else but God and His truths, while we name ourselves by His name, ignoring His Holy Spirit who is ever ready to be our Great Physician and our Counselor and our Helper. It reminds me of what was said about King Asa, who,
…was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great. Yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. –2 Chronicles 16:12
It’s time. Time for us who name the name of Christ to go back to the Author and His Manual–The Bible. It’s time for us to become very familiar with His manual.
We can no longer call ourselves His and ignore His truths. His directives. His tools.
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. –Hebrews 12:2
Look at the picture below. What does it look like to you, what thoughts come to your mind as you look at it? What do you see when you view this image? This is how life appears on the surface. A series of colorful, exciting, scary and not so pretty events all mixed together. We go about life never realizing that there is more to this surface reality.
There is a parallel view, another life running concurrently with the one we experience with our natural senses. There is a physical world we live in, a temporary world, and an eternal world, a spiritual world we cannot see with the natural view.
Whether we believe it or not makes no difference.
To see the truth of the world we live in, like this picture, you cannot view it in the normal way you usually see. We must view life through the cross to see the truth.
You have to look either cross-eyed, take the cross view, or look at it from a parallel view.
While 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
Therefore to be victorious Christians as we are intended to be, we must get back to our Creator’s Manual. Through His word revealed by His Holy Spirit, we can see and access His truths and His power. That’s why He came and bled and suffered the cross. So we can see as He sees.
Through the eyes of the cross of Christ, we see that there is a parallel reality, even more, real than what we see and experience through the natural senses.
Can we afford to go on with life as if this parallel world does not exist?
The day is coming when all flesh will give account for what they believe. (Malachi 4:1-3)
My grandmother said that she did not believe electricity or moving pictures would come. Today we take both these items for granted, unless we did not pay our electric bill.
If we believe not, yet he abides faithful: he cannot deny himself –2 Tim. 2:13
Whether we believe or not will not change God. He said that He cannot deny Himself but will abide faithful whether we believe or not.
Everything we do, every word, thought, and action, must be viewed through the parallel view, the view of the cross of Jesus Christ, that through His death we have access to a parallel world hidden from those who refuse to believe. (See 1 Corinthians 1:18).
Magic Eye Image of the Week This Week's Answer
The Eternal World: Good and Evil
Not only is there the supernatural where God’s work is carried on through His ministering angels, there is also an evil, supernatural world controlled by Satan for a season.
Ephes. 6:12
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
God is in control of the supernatural world. Satan is not God’s opposite, but both he and his workers are created beings, created by God, defeated by Christ, and under God’s control.
Col. 1:16
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Christ, through His work on the cross defeated the evil principalities forever,
Col. 2:14-15
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; [15] And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Because He has overcome principalities and power, we too, through Him will overcome.
1 John 4:4
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
Satan only has rule for a season. He can only control what we gave him control over by not submitting to Christ.
Ephes. 2:2
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
We must choose the supernatural evil or the supernatural good. We cannot serve both. To serve our God we must do so through the cross. To do so we must accept that He and His word and are one, and Jesus is the word made flesh. The Holy Spirit is our interpreter (John 14:26) of all that is in the word, pointing out to Jesus the one who went to the cross in our place.
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God And the word was God….and the word became flesh and dwelt among us…. –John 1:1, 14
It’s time for us to get back to studying His word through His Holy Spirit. Receiving His truths. Acting upon them. There are too many indicator lights on in our lives that we are not living as He paid the full price for us to live. Too many indicators that our view, the way we see life, is totally contaminated by the world’s view. By Satan’s view. By the view of our culture and our desires. And not by the truth our Creator desires us to live by.
The thief came not but to steal, and to kill and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. –John 10:10
Jesus told the people who were trying to trick him by twisting His words,
You do err not knowing the scriptures not the power of God –Matthew 22:29
Let us not be guilty of this accusation. Let us instead press in to hear Him say in the end, well done, beloved son, beloved daughter.
We must get back to our God. His word. His Holy Spirit’s revelation of Him and His word. His view. His truths.
Our decision will determine our future and that of our descendants.