O SAY CAN YOU SEE?
Do those words seem familiar? They are the first words of our national anthem, written by Francis Scott Key.
What a great question.
The world’s greatest motivational speaker, Norman Vincent Peal, made this awe-inspiring statement that is the motto of successful people:
“If you can see it, you can achieve it if you believe it!” Peal based his sayings on the teachings of Jesus, Solomon, and the Prophets.
Jesus taught us about the power of seeing, believing, and speaking in this famous teaching:
“On the day following, when they had come away from Bethany, He (Jesus) was hungry.
Seeing a fig tree covered with leaves in the distance, He went to see if He could find any fruit on it. But when He came up to it, He found nothing but leaves, for the fig season had not yet come. And He said to it, “No one ever again shall eat fruit from you.”And His disciples were listening to what He said.”
(Mark 11:14)
“And when evening came, He and His disciples, as accustomed, went out of the city. In the morning, they noticed that the fig tree was withered away to its roots.
And Peter remembered and said to Him, Master, Look! The fig tree which You doomed has withered away! And Jesus, replying, said to them:
“HAVE FAITH IN GOD. Truly I tell you, whoever says to this mountain, Be lifted and thrown into the sea and DOES NOT DOUBT IN HIS HEART BUT BELIEVES THAT THE THINGS HE SAYS WILL TAKE PLACE, IT WILL BE DONE FOR HIM!”
(Mark 19-22)
When Jesus cursed the fig tree, He visualized it dying at the time. God envisioned all that He accomplished before He spoke them into existence. He saw them first, spoke them into being, and gave us that same power.
What we see and speak, without doubt, are functions of what is in our hearts. Jesus put it like this:
“A good man out of the good treasure in his heart produces what is good, and the evil man out of the evil storehouse brings forth that which is evil; for out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”
(Luke 6:45)
When we tie the two teachings of Jesus together, we get this: From the overflow of the heart, our mouths speak, and we will have whatever we speak as long as we have no doubt or unbelief when we speak.
Our hearts overflow is composed of what we see, hear, and believe. Our Psychologist partner teaches that we are the essence of our life experiences, what we learn, and the story we tell ourselves.
I believe that the story we tell ourselves is the most important of all three of those elements. I believe that the story we tell ourselves, especially about ourselves, is composed of things we choose to see, things of the seen world or things of the unseen world.
Consider this teaching from our anointed, appointed teacher, Paul, as given to him by Holy Spirit:
“I always pray that the God of our Lord Jesus, the Father of glory, may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation that gives you a deep and personal and intimate insight into the true knowledge of Him.
AND THAT THE EYES OF YOUR HEART, the very center and core of your being, may be enlightened, flooded with light by Holy Spirit, so that you will know and cherish the hope(The Joyful celebration) to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints (God’s people), and so that you will begin to know what the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His active, spiritual power is in us who believe.
These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength which He produced in Jesus when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, whether angelic or human and far above every name that is named, not only in this age and world but also in the one to come.
And He put all things in every realm in subjection under Jesus’s feet and appointed Him as supreme and authoritative head over all things in the church (those who believe and believe in Jesus), which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills and completes all things in all believers.”
MEANING: WE MUST USE THE EYES OF OUR HEART (not our flesh or natural eyes) TO SEE THE THINGS OF GOD!
And how cool is it that God has called those of us who believe in Him His glorious inheritance? We are what He inherits. We are what God wants more than anything else because He has everything else.
We often quote another of Holy Spirit’s messages to us through Paul because it is so essential to our Spiritual, Physical, and Mental well-being:
“For we cast not our eyes on the things that we see but on the things that we do not see; because the things that we see are temporary and subject to change, but the things we do not see are of God and are eternal!”
(2Corinthians4:18)
Consider this stunningly accurate declaration from Paul, who knew nothing at all about science:
“By faith, we know that God created the things that we see from things that we can not see.”
(Hebrews 11:3)
MEANING:
The things we see were created by the things we can not see, such as protons, neutrons, and electrons. Paul knew nothing of molecular science, but Holy Spirit revealed to him that there were things in the unseen world that were greater than the things of the seen world. This means that the things in the unseen world are greater than the things of the seen world because creation can never be greater than the Creator.
SPIRIT AND LIFE ARE IN THE WORDS OF JESUS!
When we cast our eyes on them and choose to make them the energy source of our lives, the eyes of our hearts are opened to the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, Jesus. When we look into the unseen and choose to believe that Jesus guaranteed every word He spoke with His blood, we receive power.
Eternal Salvation, Joy and Gladness, Health, and Abundant Life come from seeing and hearing the Gospel of “GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY WHICH SHALL BE TO ALL PEOPLE,” receiving those Words, and visualizing them with the eyes of our hearts.
Seeing the things of God comes from depositing good fruit into our hearts. If our hearts are full of good fruit, which are the Words and thoughts of Jesus, they will overflow, and we will speak them into existence as long as we speak them without doubt in our hearts.
Think about this teaching from Jesus:
“No one lights a lamp and then puts it in a cellar or under a basket hiding the light; instead, it is placed on the lampstand so that those who come in may see the light.
The eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is clear, spiritually perceptive, and focused on God, your whole body is also full of light . But when it is bad, spiritually blind, your body is also full of darkness devoid of God’s word.
Be careful, therefore, that the light that is in you is not darkness. So if your whole body is illuminated, with no dark part, it will be entirely bright [with light], as when the lamp gives you light with its bright rays.”
(Luke 11:34-35)
That teaching is particularly fascinating to me. “BE CAREFUL THEREFORE THAT THE LIGHT IN YOU IS NOT DARKNESS!”
Link that declaration from Jesus with this one from Holy Spirit through the disciple John:
“IN HIM (Jesus) WAS LIFE, AND THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN. AND THE LIGHT SHINES ON IN THE DARKNESS, FOR THE DARKNESS HAS NEVER OVERPOWERED IT!”
(John 1:4-5)
Jesus is the Light! He said that on multiple occasions. The evil one is the darkness. Either our hearts are filled with Jesus or with evil. Jesus is positive. The evil one is negative. The light in us is what we choose to see. We see Jesus in His Words.
WE GET TO CHOOSE WHAT WE SEE.
END OF TEACHING
