Myopia is defined as nearsightedness or
shortsightedness, lack of foresight or discernment. Physical myopia can
cause
some long-term damage if it is not properly treated. Myopia from a
spiritual
standpoint will be detrimental to the saving of our souls if not
biblically corrected.
For those of us who are involved in Bible studies that
focus on conversion, we may have heard this statement: “I
just can’t see that!”
It is another way of saying, “I don’t believe
that!” Why are we sometimes put
off or taken back when people say that? Usually our first reaction is
to take
it personally. We forget that our lives are our story, but the story is
not
about us! “Not unto us O Lord, not unto us, but to Your name
give glory,
because of Your mercy and because of Your truth” (Psalm
115:1). God works his
purpose for us according to the counsel of his
will—not ours.
God the Father, God the Son and God
the Holy Spirit have different functions in the Godhead, but their
plan, goal
and aim is and always has been our salvation. We as human beings are
simply the
recipients and the messengers of God’s revealed plan for our
redemption. Jesus
Christ is the hub of that redemptive plan. The Holy Spirit is the
Helper Jesus
promised who would guide us through the Word as redeemed sinners. They
each
have a divine response to, “I just can’t see
that!”
When the truth from God’s Word has been presented, and
the reply is, “I just can’t see that!” we
must remember God said his Word that
went forth from his mouth would not return to him void. He said,
“But it shall
accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I
sent it”
(Isaiah 55:11b). The Bible is the mind of God in human language; it is
all
about him because he has ultimate control.
We must remember that Jesus said, “He who rejects Me,
and does not receive My words, has that which judges him–the
word that I have
spoken will judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). Notice
Jesus said, the
word he has spoken will judge us. It is imperative that we believe and
obey
what Christ has said.
We must remember that the Holy Spirit, speaking of God
said, “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your
hearts as in the
rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers
tested Me,
tried Me, and saw My works forty years” (Hebrews 3:7-9).
Rebellion and unbelief
are devices of Satan, and he uses them to keep us spiritually blind.
Some people “can’t see’ why they are
lost. Jesus makes
this emphatically clear in the Parable of the Seed and the Sower in Matthew 13:1-23. He
explains we have one of four
responses to hearing the truth. There are countless millions of people
who
“can’t see” their lost condition and do
not understand their morality cannot
and will not save them. Jesus said, “When anyone hears the
word of the kingdom,
and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away
what
was sown in his heart” (Matthew 13:19a).
Some people “can’t see” why God chastens
us and they
become angry or discouraged with his divine discipline. The writer of
the Book
of Hebrews makes this crystal clear. “My son, do not despise
the chastening of
the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the
LORD
loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives”
(Hebrews 12:5b).
Some people “can’t see” God’s
will for their lives. They
readily accept it as long as the conditions are favorable from their
vantage
point. However, when God’s will begins to include the
unexpected and the unwanted,
we sometimes begin to question our allegiance to him. Peter lets us
know the
Christian life is not and was never promised to be a bed of
roses–unless we
count the thorns! He said, “Yet if anyone suffers as a
Christian, let him not
be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.”
“Therefore let those who suffer
according to the will of God
commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful
Creator” (I Peter
4:16, 19). Suffering and adversity are parts of the Christian life, and
it must
be rightly endured. Obedience and service to God do not equal spending
our days
in prosperity and our years in pleasures.
When we “can’t see” truth from
God’s revealed Word, it
is a form of unbelief. We are sinning when we refuse to allow
God’s Word to
affect our emotions and regulate our will. It is spiritually obscene.
Speaking
of God, Jesus said, “He who believes in Him is not condemned;
but he who does
not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the
name of
the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). Our belief is
summed up in
everything we do in obedience to God.
The truth of God’s Word is hidden from those who are
hostile or uninterested in knowing it. God’s Word is good
news to those who
accept it; it is the worse kind of news to those who reject it! Paul
told the
church at Corinth, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is
veiled to those who
are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not
believe,
lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image
of God,
should shine on them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).
God works his plan of redemption through our lives. The
Bible is replete with examples of those whose lives were submitted to
his
divine call, power and direction. Abraham’s life is a
striking example, perhaps
the greatest of them all, because God said that through him, all the nations of the earth would be
blessed (Genesis 12:1-3)! Paul’s life stands as a shining
example because Jesus
declared Paul was a chosen vessel to bear his name before Gentiles,
kings and
the children of Israel
(Acts 9:15).
We see things clearly through the eyes of faith, and it
motivates us to worship and serve God. We see and understand that God
is the
writer, the director and the producer of all the days of our lives. We
know Jesus
Christ is the centerpiece of our belief, trust and reliance on him. The
book of
1 John repeatedly affirms that conviction.
Such statements as, “I just can’t see
that!” and “I
don’t believe that!” will never come from the mouth
of those striving to live
according to the Book! We are developing in spiritual maturity when we
begin to
see things the way God sees them. His mind becomes our mind and
spiritual
myopia is a total unknown to us.
By
Marilyn LaStrape