August 06, 2008
Ephphatha (which means Be Opened!)
When child abuse is discovered other family members in the home will often report, ‘I just didn’t see it.’ It runs through my mind that the victims might wonder, ‘did you really not see it or was it that you didn’t want to see it’? When I’ve pointed out errors, discrepancies and even sin in the church, some in the family of God respond, “I just don’t see it.” You’d think if we don’t see something that others are bringing to our attention that we would petition the Lord to open our eyes. Quite the contrary. It appears that believers think by declaring ‘I just don’t see it’ they are somehow relieved of any responsibility and obligation. When the Son of Man comes there are people who will still be feebly saying …‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison…?’…Matt 25:44a NIV
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Gail;
-----You are getting scary, now. “On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” (Matt 7:22) These are not small feats. It takes insight and depth of life to prophecy. It takes faith to cast out demons and do mighty works. And these were not just a few mighty works done, they were many. So were those who thus retorted. I do not even have the insight and depth of life to prophecy, or the faith for doing great works and casting out demons. If the Lord bade me to go away with the goats, I could not even make this retort.
-----Jesus further developed the concept of Deuteronomy 29:4: eyes to see and ears to hear. We can see the signs of the coming weather, but Jesus complained about the inability to interpret the signs of the times. There is not only an interest in knowing the coming weather, but there is a greater sense in being humbled to it. The weather is that kind of thing effecting a small piece of our more immediate destinies. If I know it is going to rain cats and dogs Saturday, I will prepare to work inside instead of outside. And it will be to my advantage to be able to see and understand the signs of it, so that I will indeed be prepared for the proper task. That is the desire to be able to see. And, of course, my sight will be directed towards the true signs of the weather as opposed to being focused on my inner sensations as if I should sit cross-legged on the floor going, “Ahmmmmmmm, Ahmmmmmm, etc., etc,” and hope to receive some inner signal. It is just basic that to see effectively you must give effective attention.
-----Many in the church do not see the “child” abuse happening there, not because they do not want to, but because they have never been trained in giving effective attention. Or maybe it is because they have not been shown the relevance to the new life the signs that can be seen in the church really do have. If one or both of these factors are missing, the desire to see the signs of the “child” abuse in the church will not be there. But it will be an innocent missing. For many who do not see do have the humility to respond if they were to see, because they do have the more fundamentally important realization of where they fit in the overall system of truth and self. It is just that, in some ways, those leaders whom the Lord has given a responsibility for teaching these things have been too busy abusing rather than actually teaching.
-----The ones who know how to see effectively and do not because they have no desire to see what there is to see, or have no humility to properly respond to what they might see are the ones who are in danger of going, “Lord, Lord…” on that day. They are the ones who refuse to realize their fit into the overall system of truth and self. Though they probably will not be found on the floor going, “Ahmmmm, Ahmmmm,” all the same, they will be found looking inside themselves to various visions-from-God, miscellaneous learned and contrived Christian clichés, and simple feel-good emotional responses gotten from doing religious things rather than having opened the Bible, taken it fearfully serious, and applied what they read in it to their behaviors. They are the ones who are so uncompassionate as to be blind to a hungry or thirsty Jesus. They see all too well inside themselves, they respond all to well to that. But reality continues to hold tight to what God has made it, and those who refuse to see will go missing.
Love,
Steve Corey
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