Today we continue our series “God is faithful!” The Lord led me to 2 Corinthians 4. In this passage, we are looking at what it looks like to believe God is faithful. Because of God’s faithfulness towards us, we can withstand and overcome anything!
(2 Corinthians 4:1, 7-13, 16-18 TPT)
1 Now, it’s because of God’s mercy that we have been entrusted with the privilege of this new covenant ministry. And we will not quit or faint with weariness.
7 We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that this immeasurable power will be seen as God’s, not ours.
8 Though we experience every kind of pressure, we’re not crushed. At times we don’t know what to do, but quitting is not an option.
9 We are persecuted by others, but God has not forsaken us. We may be knocked down, but not out.
10 We continually share in the death of Jesus in our own bodies so that the resurrection life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity.
11 We consider living to mean that we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake so that the life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity.
12 So, then, death is at work in us but it releases life in you.
13 We have the same Spirit of faith that is described in the Scriptures when it says, “First I believed, then I spoke in faith.” So we also first believe then speak in faith.
16 So no wonder we don’t give up. For even though our outer person gradually wears out, our inner being is renewed every single day.
17 We view our slight, short-lived troubles in the light of eternity. We see our difficulties as the substance that produces for us an eternal, weighty glory far beyond all comparison,
18 because we don’t focus our attention on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but the unseen realm is eternal.
The key to seeing the UNSEEN is developing spiritual perception. So today I want us to consider something that happened in Mark 8. In this passage, Jesus fed 4,000 people with seven loaves of bread. Later He and His disciples boarded a boat to head to the other side of the lake. Once in the boat, the disciples realized that they only had one loaf of bread. This caused an argument about who was supposed to bring the food. Jesus said, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see? Are you not able to understand? Do you have eyes that can’t see? Do you have ears that can’t hear? Remember what I did before, when we did not have enough bread? I divided five loaves of bread for 5000 people. How many baskets of food were left over?” The disciples answered, “12 full baskets.” Jesus continued, “And when I divided seven loaves of bread for 4000 people, how many baskets did you fill with the leftover pieces?” They answered, “Seven full baskets.” Then Jesus said to them, “You remember these things I did, but you still don’t understand?” Obviously, Jesus was seeing and hearing things that His disciples were not. This is spiritual perception. Let’s talk about it.
So what does this mean to you today? A few things.
1. For you to receive what heaven is releasing, you must perceive, in the spirit, what heaven is saying.
a) It’s hard to receive, on earth, if you cannot perceive, from heaven. What God wants for you is: on earth, as it is in heaven. But for this to become your reality, for you to experience heaven on earth, you must develop spiritual perception by the Holy Spirit.
b) The Lord told Abraham, “All the land that you are able to see, I will give to you and your offspring forever.” (Gen 13:15). The Lord spent time with Abraham, working with him to develop his ability to “see.” In the case of the land, all Abraham was able to perceive, he was able to receive.
c) The Lord told Moses, “See, I have given you this land” (Deut 1:8). The Lord had already promised this land to Abraham, and it was now time for Abraham’s descendants to take possession of it. However, they needed to be able to “see” it first. If you can’t “see” it, as far as God is concerned, you can’t have it.
d) Paul knew the importance of being able to see in the Spirit. He could not have accomplished what he accomplished without the ability to see. So this was his prayer for the believers in Ephesus: “I always pray to the great and glorious Father, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that he will give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. The Spirit will let you know truths about God and help you understand them, so that you will know him better. I pray that God will open your minds (other translations say, “Flood your eyes with light”), to see his truth. Then you will know the hope that he has chosen us to have. You will know that the blessings God has promised his holy people are rich and glorious.” (Ephesians 1:17,18). Paul prayed that believers would be able to “see.” Why? Because you have to SEE IT to BE IT! You will never take possession of things you can’t see in the Spirit.
2. Spiritual perception is critical to successfully walking with God.
a) Jesus lived His life as an example of what it looks like to live in two realms at the same time. Jesus lived in the earth, but He received His marching orders from heaven.
b) There are always two realms in operation. Jesus sometimes seemed like He was not in sync with this realm because He was in sync with God’s realm. When you truly live by faith, you are operating off of instructions and evidence that the people of this world are blind to.
c) After Jesus taught the parable of the sower to a crowd, He explained to His disciples why He spoke in parables. He said, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding.” See, when God is using a human to communicate His thoughts, ideas, and ways in this world, there is a voice behind the voice of the human. A Word is being communicated behind the words flowing from the human’s lips. To hear the voice behind the voice and the word behind the word, you must be spiritually discerning.
d) God wants you to develop in Him to the point where you can see, hear and understand what He is doing in this world and in your life.
3. The unseen is the superior realm.
a) Living by faith is living your life based on a reality you cannot see in this world (with natural eyes). You can see beyond where your eyes can look.
b) Living by faith is living on the earth in sync with heaven.
c) Just because you cannot see something with natural eyes does not mean it’s not there. Everything you can see in this world came from the world you cannot see. The writer of Hebrews said it this way, “Faith helps us understand that God created the whole world by his command. This means that the things we see were made by something that cannot be seen” (Heb 11:3).
d) The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is natural sight. That’s why Paul said, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor 5:7). As believers, we choose to live our lives by faith, living off of a reality that cannot be seen with natural eyes.
e) Paul told the believers in Corinth what we, as Spirit-filled children of God, should be focused on. He said, “We focus our eyes on what we cannot see, not what we see. What we see lasts only a short time, and what we cannot see will last forever.” (2 Cor 4:18). Paul taught us to spend time looking at things we cannot see with our natural eyes. We are supposed to spend time looking at things we can see that are beyond our physical eye’s ability to look.
— In the Spirit, we can see into eternity, from time, and come back equipped to live informed by that revelation.
— In the Spirit, we can see into heaven, from the earth, and come back to LIVE OUT what we saw.
4. God expects your supernatural experiences with Him to help develop your spiritual perception.
a) When the disciples were complaining about only having one loaf of bread, Jesus was upset about their lack of spiritual perception. They had been through so much with Him that He expected them to be able to perceive by that point. He asked, “Do you still not see? Are you not able to understand? Do you have eyes that can’t see? Do you have ears that can’t hear?” He then asked, “Remember what I did before, when we did not have enough bread?” Jesus’ point was that their past experiences should have helped them develop their spiritual perception.
b) Spiritual things are happening every day, all around us. But for us to benefit and receive from the supernatural realm, we must be able to perceive it, believe it, and receive it by faith. This is why God wants us to see, hear and understand in the spirit. If you can see, hear, and understand in the spirit, you can be changed by what you see, hear and understand, and it will position you to experience divine victory in this world.
5. The Father expects us to live our lives based on what He enables us to SEE in the realm of the unseen.
a) Faith peers into the unseen realm and makes decisions in this realm based on that realm.
b) We are not called to live only by earthly limitations. We are called to perform the impossible by the grace of God.
c) One of the key reasons why God’s Spirit enables us to see the invisible is so He can perform the seemingly impossible through us. If we can see it, believe it, and tap into the grace to perform it, by faith, then the impossible will become possible for us. But this is all contingent upon your ability to perceive what God is leading you to do. None of this happens if you are not led by the Holy Spirit.
I pray you learn to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit, and I pray you have the courage to allow Him to lead you, even at the risk of looking foolish, so you can accomplish God’s will on this planet BEFORE you die!
Declaration of Faith:
Father, this is a season of LEVELING UP for me! I LEVEL UP by walking in the Spirit every day of my life. I LEVEL UP my ability to perceive what You are revealing to me. I am learning that my learning is not enough. Adam never went to school. Adam had revelation that was greater than any education could ever provide. I am Born-Again. I go back to living the way Adam lived before the fall, which is the way Jesus lived on this planet. I graduate from learning to discerning, from intellect to instinct, from education to revelation. I declare, by faith, that I can see, hear and understand what You are doing in this world, in my life, and in my community. I perceive, I believe, and I receive from You, so You can make an impact in this world through me. I live in this realm, but I live in sync with Your realm, even if it means I am out-of-sync with the people down here. Living this way, I boldly declare, GREATER IS COMING FOR ME! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is Today’s Word! Apply it and Prosper.
