Ephesians 1:15–23 ‘I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you’ (vv17–18).
We are comfortable using our natural senses to make judgments. We observe, draw conclusions and make decisions based on our preconceptions. Paul prays that we might learn through the Spirit to have the eyes of our heart opened. Once again we are drawn into the reality of that which lies beyond our natural reach. God finds us, reveals the gospel and we choose if we shall respond (1 Cor. 15:1–5).
Now we begin to see through the eyes of faith and life is not what it might at first appear. Also the cultural norms we have accepted may need challenging for they fail to serve God’s interests and may threaten our own development as His disciple. We can place confidence in what we discern, yet we must learn to live in a world in which we live as ‘resident aliens’. Our home is in another kingdom, and we are its ambassadors throughout our short stay on the earth.
We start each day with prayer for it is the threshold on which we open our spiritual eyes and ask God that we might see all that He is doing around us. The self-evident is seldom born of the Spirit. It takes a devoted disciple to learn to live dependent on God’s leading, and to develop the eye of faith. Finding hope, the will of God, in our daily life experience is always a challenge but this is the Christian life, learning more of God daily whilst investing ourselves in God’s purposes.
SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER: 2 Cor. 4:1–18; Acts 26:1–19; Phil. 3:15–21; 1 Pet. 2:1–17.
AN ACTION TO TAKE: Learning to see through the eye of faith is how we discover God’s way in the world in which we live.
A PRAYER TO MAKE: ‘Lord, teach me to see through Your eyes and present You to those I meet every day. Amen.’
