What if I told you that God could be seen in the most ordinary things every day?
What if I told you that every day, ordinary events could teach us extraordinary eternal truths? Would you believe me?
Welcome back to season 6 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! My name is BJ Sipe, and I am a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. In our next few moments together, we hope to learn some of the most important lessons from some of the simplest things in life. Thank you for taking this journey with me.
Having poor eyesight is something that runs in my family, and unfortunately is something that has been passed down to me. My father wears coke bottles for glasses, at least that’s how it seems when you look at the thickness of his lenses. I’m convinced that his vision is about as bad as Isaac’s must have been when he thought Jacob was Esau. Well, I inherited that gene, and around 15 or 16 years ago I had to get my very first pair of glasses. I am near sighted, which means that I struggle to see things that are at a distance. As I have aged, that has gotten progressively worse. Not only this, but I also have astigmatism, which has made driving at night extraordinarily difficult with oncoming headlights. If it’s dark, raining, and I’m in an unfamiliar location, you might as well just take my keys because I am next to no good behind the wheel. I’ve also had my fair share of eyewear woes over the years. I’ve driven over a pair of my glasses. Snapped a pair in half as I was cleaning them. Had a pair chewed up by a dog. It’s been a hassle. So, there was a period of time that I tried contacts, but that was even more of a mess! It took me literally an hour to get them in the first few times, and after that they kept falling out because my eyes got so dry. If I ever wore contacts, I was needing to put drops in my eyes every hour. Needless to say, it’s been a frustrating journey at times, though at the end of the day I’m just thankful we have the tools available to help me see.
That being said, tech has advanced tremendously over the last two decades, and there has always been something that I’ve wanted to do ever since my vision started to go: LASIK surgery. If you are unfamiliar with this procedure, LASIK stands for “Laser-Assisted in Situ Keratomileusis” – which is self-explanatory in why the acronym. Through this procedure, doctors use specialized lasers to permanently reshape the cornea. In doing so, vision impairments such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and even astigmatism can all be corrected so that light can focus properly on the retina. In other words, this procedure can change my life. I’ve wanted this procedure done for years, but for one reason or another it just has not been feasible for us to be able to do it. However, over this last week, as I saw another advertisement for a LASIK center in Lexington, KY – I mentioned to Kylie again how much I would love to get that done at some point. She turned and looked at me and said, “well then do it!” We looked things over, and for the first time in our lives, we are finally in a position to be able to legitimately get this done. My consultation is this next Saturday on the 30th, and if all goes well, within the next week I will finally have my vision corrected so that I can see clearly for the first time in nearly two decades!
While many of you perhaps see quite perfectly without the assistance of any “visual aids” so to speak, the reality is that our most important quality of vision has nothing to do with glasses, contacts, or laser surgery. Instead, it has everything to do with the truth and our hearts.
Spiritual blindness is a real warning that is spoken of time and time again throughout the prophets and the apostles, but perhaps no stronger of a warning than that of our Lord Jesus Christ. After healing a man born blind in John 9, Jesus used this as an opportunity to warn about spiritual blindness to the religious leaders of that time. We read in vv. 35-41, “Jesus heard that they had thrown the man out, and when he found him, he asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “Who is he, Sir, that I may believe in him?” he asked. Jesus answered, “You have seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” “I believe, Lord!” he said, and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and asked him, “We aren’t blind too, are we?” “If you were blind,” Jesus told them, “you wouldn’t have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
This blind man saw Jesus for who he was: the Messiah. He saw the signs, he understood the implication of what this meant regarding not only Jesus’ identity, but the truthfulness of his teaching. The Jewish leaders witnessed the very same things with their own eyes, heard the very same teachings with their own ears…and yet they were without understanding. They thought that they had spiritual understanding, but in reality, they were blind to the truth. Why? Because they were unwilling to see it. What was clear to the blind man because of the condition of his heart was unclear to the Pharisees because, as Paul would write in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, “But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
If we are not careful, it is quite possible for us to exercise spiritual blindness just like the Pharisees. Paul warns in Ephesians 4:17-18, “Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts.” If the condition of our hearts are calloused, sensual, and focused on carnal things, we will be blinded to the spiritual realities and truths given to us by God. True vision begins with humility, to see things God’s way and not our way. To see our great need spiritually for him, and to act on what we then perceive and understand in faith.
Some of the most beautifully penned words are found in Ephesians 1:19-20, where Paul writes, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength.” Paul’s prayer was that all of us undergo “spiritual laser surgery” on our hearts, so to speak. That we might finally in humility not be blinded to the spiritual realities around us, but rather have our eyes opened finally to what is true and revealed to us from our Creator. In fact, Paul prays that we are able to clearly see three things in this prayer.
First, that we might clearly see the hope of his calling. While those who are blinded to spiritual truths have their mind set on this earth, those who have the eyes of their hearts enlightened walk by faith, and not by sight. They have their mind set on things above and live each day with their hearts set on their eternal home & glory, not things to be temporarily experienced in the here and now. Those who truly see can see that this world is not all that there is. Second, Paul prays that we can see the riches of his glorious inheritance. Those who have the eyes of their hearts enlightened see the value of what it means to be adopted as a child of God. Our treasure is not on this earth but found in our identity of being children of God and those who will inherit eternal life. Like Paul, we count all things as rubbish for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord. Finally, Paul prays that we see and understand the immeasurable greatness of God’s power. In other words, those who truly see are those who truly believe and trust in the promises of God. There is no question in the mind of those who have the eyes of their hearts enlightened, they know God is both willing and able to do the things that he has promised. They see him working clearly from the very beginning to this present day, even what has yet to be revealed when he returns and calls us home. They echo the confidence of Paul in Lord when he would tell the Philippians in 1:6, “I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
My friends, lift up your eyes to see what is true. Open your hearts and allow God to illuminate what was once dark so that you can walk clearly in the light. The time to correct your vision is now. Come to Jesus, so that you for the very first time in your life, can finally see things for how they truly are.
This has been season 6 episode 16 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast – and I’m so thankful that we had this time to grow together! A new episode is dropped each Friday of the week. If you’re able to, go ahead and like and subscribe to the podcast, give us a good rating, and tune in next week. Even more important, share the spiritual truths that we learned today with someone else. And more than anything my friends, always remember the following: know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.
