SEEING the KINGDOM! Part 1

http://janinalaier.theworldrace.org/?filename=seeing-the-kingdom-part-2A few months ago in Guatemala, I wrote a blog entitled, “Gaining the Eyes of Christ.” I told the story of a woman named Mary that touched my heart and taught me about seeing as Christ sees. To review that story, click HERE.

 

In transitioning back to America, I often sat before the Lord with the same question: “God, what is it you want me to tell the American church?” After eleven months of experiencing only that which I dreamt of, the answer to this question seemed almost impossible. Overwhelming to be exact.

One day, it hit me. The Lord said, “Tell them about gaining the eyes of Christ.”
“WOW, God!” I replied in excitement. I knew this was so much more than a simple statement, so I waited for more revelation to come.

As I began to research “eyes” in the Bible, I found a few key passages. The first place eyes are mentioned is in Genesis 3:5. Here we are taken to the story of Adam and Eve as they are tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The serpent tells Eve that she will not surely die if she eats the fruit of the tree but rather that, “In the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

I am no Bible scholar, but this passage makes it clear to me that Eve’s eyes could only see certain elements in the world. But what could this mean? Clearly, Adam and Eve were not blind before this incident. So what was it they could not see?

The next passage I was taken to is the story of a man blind at birth. (Now is where you stop, find your Bible, and read John 9:1-34. Do it. I promise you that Jesus’ words are more powerful than mine!)

Jesus passes by this man on the road, spits on the ground to make clay, and anoints the blind man’s eyes with this clay. He then tells the man to go and wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam. The man obeys and returns with eyes fully restored. As the once-blind man begins to tell others what Jesus has done for him, some believe and some refuse. Keep in mind that His biggest opponents were the Pharisees who just couldn’t make sense of this miracle. So because they could not understand, they refused to believe even when the evidence was before their very eyes.

I then flipped to Matthew 13:10-17. (You can read this in your Bible, too.) Here we see Jesus explaining his purpose in talking in parables. He explains that some have been given knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom, but some have not. Jesus says, “Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” The real kicker for me is verse 17 where Jesus says, “Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”