Words from My Past

I've been sorting through files, downsizing it's called. I didn't realize I'd kept so many pages of musings from decades ago. Some are typewritten, many are handwritten. Some are on yellow legal-size paper, others are on scraps of paper or on the back of other documents. 

There are charts I made of Biblical history, diagrams of Biblical books, harmonies of Gospel sections, word studies. I came upon a study of "gates" I did - I began in Genesis and kept going, trying to understand the significance of "gates" in the Bible. After all, "gates" are places of ingress and egress, and places of authority.

When I worked for Pulte Home Corporation in the late 1970s or early 1980s (can't recall the specific dates) I used the back of voided purchase orders to write thoughts down during the day. I found the following on the back of a purchase order dated March 24, 1978 - the thought must have come to me at work, during the day, and I took a voided purchase order and wrote:

"Faith is not blindly leaping, but rather sightfully walking. There is ample evidence in the Scripture that natural seeing does not produce faith, but that the development of our inner senses causes us to walk in faith."

I still believe that. Paul told the Corinthians that they were still not ready for solid food, that he couldn't speak to them as spiritual men but as "men of flesh" (1 Cor. 3:1 - 4). 

The writer of Hebrews makes a similar complaint to the recipients of his letter, concluding that "...solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil" (Hebrews 5:11 - 14). 

People talk about what they see, and if our eyes are on the natural world most of the time then we will primarily (sometimes exclusively) speak of natural things. Jesus tells us that if our eye is single  and clear then our whole body will be full of light (Matthew 6:22). 

Paul says that he and his companions don't look at that which is seen but at that which is unseen, for that which is seen is temporal but that which is unseen is eternal (2 Cor. 4:17 - 18). 

Psalm 119:130 tells us that when the Word of God comes into our lives, our hearts, our minds, our souls, that it gives light. 

Unless we cultivate our spiritual eyesight we simply cannot live lives of faith. Unless the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ, unless the Word of Christ and the Christ of the Word, is our center of gravity we simply cannot live as citizens of the Kingdom of God. As Jesus says, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." 

We cannot serve two masters, we cannot do it - and yet we kid ourselves and others by thinking and living as if we can. When we attempt to serve two masters the Kingdom of God pretty much always loses - because God is not going to play those games with us...in fact...He will judge us and we will suffer the consequences of spiritual adultery. 

Of course the Kingdom is, in another sense, always advancing; the shame is that when we refuse to take up our cross and follow Christ that we do not advance with the Kingdom. We, who could be blessings to others, remain on the sidelines with lives uncommitted to Jesus Christ. 

Well, now you know what I was thinking back on March 24, 1978; and you also know what I'm thinking about today - 41 years later.