Spiritual Sight

I counsel you to buy from Me... salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. (Revelation 3:18 ESV)

We have to test everything we think we see and know by its effect in our lives. You and I may have an enormous amount of what we think to be spiritual knowledge; we have all the doctrines, all the truths. We can box the compass of evangelical doctrine; and what is the effect? It is not seeing, beloved, in a true spiritual sense, if we are not changed. Yes, seeing is to be changed, and it is not seeing if it does not bring that about. It would be far better for us to be stripped of all that and to be brought right down to the point where we really do see just a little that makes a difference. We must be very honest with God about this. Oh, would we not sooner have just a very little indeed that was a hundred percent effective, than a whole mountain of knowledge, ninety percent of which counted for nothing? We must ask the Lord to save us from advancing beyond spiritual Life, advancing, I mean, with knowledge, a kind of knowledge, presuming to know. You know what I mean. Real seeing, Paul says, is being changed, and being changed is a matter of seeing as by the Lord the Spirit. So we will pray to see....

It is never too late to get spiritual sight, however blind we may have been, and for however long, if we really mean business with the Lord. But do not forget that this is a matter of being honest with God. The Lord Jesus said a wonderful thing to Nathanael. Nathanael was perilously near that double blindness. At the moment when he allowed himself to give expression to a popular prejudice, he was very near the danger zone. He said, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" That is a popular prejudice. A popular prejudice has robbed many a man and woman of knowing God’s fuller thoughts. Prejudices may take many forms. Let us be careful.... If you are in danger through your prejudice, beware; forsake your prejudice, be open-hearted. Be an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob, no guile, open-hearted to the Lord, and you will see.

By T. Austin-Sparks from: Spiritual Sight - Chapter 2

In some ways the lack of spiritual sight is the cruelest of all because one is unaware of their condition and plight so as to take corrective action. Then one day comes when it is too late and the snare is triggered and calamaity and destruction arrive. I often read the letter to the Church of Laodecia because I feel it is for the church today. Materialism is a great cause of lukewarmness and spiritual lethargy. The letter is one of the harshest of the seven found in Rev. 2 & 3. But I so love that one verse in the Laodecian letter where Jesus says, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent." He is not speaking condemnation but conviction because He loves us and it is not too late. We can heed His voice and get right with Him and enjoy a good life as He intended it to be. All of God's dealings with us is done with the motive of love. Time is short and there will come a time when we don't know or expect it when it will in fact be too late. The world and social system around us is applying pressure to us that we must resist or we will be molded into it. We are like frogs in a pot of water being heated slowly to a boil. Harken to His Voice and live above with Christ connected to the True and Living Vine.

Amen Brother!

The church at Laodecia is the Church in America, and Jesus is outside knocking on the door. Out of His heart of love, He Calls us to repentance, and some of the greatest promises are given to this church.

Couldn’t agree more and it does indeed seem to be increasing not only in reach but also in intensity- this attempt by the world to conform us to its image.
I remember Art Katz saying the "plagues” were for the Israelites not for the Egyptians (at least the first 8) - that they were so comfortable in their bondage that they didn’t want to be delivered so God, in His mercy, sent the plagues to make Egypt an undesirable experience in an inhospitable place so that the children of Israel would be willing to come out of it...

Me thinks this could easily be applied to our current situation in the world (our Egypt) and all these social, cultural, & political ails could function much like the plagues in that they cause us (His people) to pull back and further separate from the world, actively seeking deliverance but this time rather than Moses, we have Holy Spirit to lead us 🙏🏻

I’m both troubled and excited in facing what is happening and couldn’t agree more that we must need spiritual sight and that comes from the light of His presence. Only the light of the life that defeated death will be able to overcome the spiritual darkness currently enveloping the world.

Haggai 1:3-14

[3] Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, [4] "Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? [5] Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. [6] You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

[7] "Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. [8] Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD. [9] You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. [10] Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. [11] And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all the land.

The People Obey the LORD

[12] Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD. [13] Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD’s message, "I am with you, declares the LORD.” [14] And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God,