VISION ISSUES

VISION ISSUES

Friday, June 03, 2016

Job [KJV] 13:15a Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him

John [ESV] 3:1-10 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

“For many the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. But the precepts are not new. They are eternal.” (Heard in Maryland Bible Institute class many decades ago.)

  Grandmother McGee to me I’d see things right before my eyes but not see what was happening. I didn’t dare tell her but thought her goofy, making no sense at all.

  My vision did clarify as I aged, especially so when I began to see the kingdom of heaven, largely in no longer viewing life as the bugs on the windshield. At age 27 I began seeing all issues as no longer narrowly social and political, but as spiritual, having to do with the kingdom of God and our individual standing within or without the realm of the Eternal King.

  This truth is no New Testament (NT) revelation revealed in Jesus’ latter-day explanation recorded in John 3.

  There are examples recorded throughout the Old Testament (OT). I chose Job to illustrate as he was the first story that revealed to me that seeing the kingdom of heaven is not exclusively something Jesus brought about beginning with the NT.

  Job definitely saw the financial, family, marriage, health calamities that beset him. But, though not understanding fully the WHY, he also clearly saw with eternal vision beyond present dilemmas, declaring in response to the opinions of his short-sighted friends “Your wisdom and arguments are as delicate as dust. Be quiet while I speak, then say what you will. I will be responsible for what happens to me. God may kill me, but still I will trust him and offer my defense.” (GW Job13:12-15)

  I pray that my double-vision develops until the moment it finally becomes one dimensional.

  How now do you see all this?

EBB4

PS: “Kingdom of heaven” and “kingdom of God” re used interchangeably in God’s Word.