Seeing is Believing

One of the recurring themes God has given us through the first half of this year is the importance of seeing the greatness of Christ in the life of the believer.

John Piper recently posted on his twitter: "Being lost means being blind to divine glory in the gospel To see it and savor it is to be saved. 2 Corinthians 4:46"

This is the exact thought that we have been processing and preaching over the past few months. 

Do you ever look out at the moon on a clear, summer night? Sometimes it is a full moon, and other times it is only a thumbnail.

If you are into science might know this fact: The moon actually has no light of it’s own. All it does is simply reflect the brightness of the sun, when the sun is shining on the opposite end of the world. This is also true of our attempts to share the light of Jesus.

Scripture says of believers: “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14), and “we all with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Who’s glory to we reflect? Our own? No! Like the moon, we have no light of our own. We only reflect God’s glory, just as the moon reflects the light of the sun. And just like the moon, we can only reflect God’s glory as effectively as we see it. As we understand and comprehend how great God really is, we are then able to reveal this to others around us.

The foundation of our witness is that we are called to see first, and then reflect the glory of God. It starts with seeing how great God really is for ourselves. If we don’t think God is that great, why would we attempt to share Him with anyone?

1 Corinthians 13:12 explains our dilemma. We all have trouble seeing how great God is. “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then [in heaven] we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then [in heaven] I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”

Heaven will be unexplainably good. Heaven will be filled with people from all nations who are filled with perfect joy and satisfaction, and there will be constant worship of our good God. One of the main reasons we won’t stop worshiping is because we will finally see God clearly. When we see God clearly, in all of His glory and splendor and majesty, our only response could possibly be to worship and bow endlessly. 

Our goal in this life is to see Him in greater ways, as clearly as possible, and then reflect and shine on those around us!

Occupy All Streets

Last year, on the south end of the Twin Cities, Bethany International hosted a conference with Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth With a Mission. Youth with a Mission, known simply as YWAM has had nearly one million DTS (Discipleship Training School) alumni, and over 5 million alumni that have gone thru their various ministries over the past 6 decades.

I had the privilege to do a radio interview with Loren before the conference, and to participate in various meetings at the conference as he was sharing.  In one of the meetings, I listened to Loren share firsthand about an encounter he had with Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ a few decades ago:

In 1975, Bill Bright and Loren Cunningham randomly ran into each other at the Colorado airport and decided to grab lunch together. Loren excitedly began to tell Bill about a recent vision God had given him. In the middle of his sharing, Bill pulled out a scribbled piece of paper out of his bag with his notes on the exact same vision God had given him!

"That vision was that if we are to impact any nation for Jesus Christ, then we would have to affect the seven spheres, or mountains of society that are the pillars of any society. These seven mountains are business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, the family and religion. There are many subgroups under these main categories.

About a month later the Lord showed Francis Schaeffer the same thing. In essence, God was telling these three change agents where the battlefield was. It was here where culture would be won or lost. Their assignment was to raise up change agents to scale the mountains and to help a new generation of change agents understand the larger story of how to occupy and transform cities and nations." (source: reclaim7mountains.com)

Carl Lentz, Lead Pastor of Hillsong in New York City has been tweeting about this idea lately, using the tag #OccupyAllStreets.

This is what it means for Church to occupy: not simply occupy seats within the church, but to occupy streets across the earth.

By streets, I don't necessarily mean we need to embark on an agressive form of street evangelism, but rather taking the glory of God to the places He has called each of us - for some of us - banks, medical research facilities, scientific labs, investment firms, foreign nations and beyond.

It’s not about our role. Our heroes in Scripture were not all preachers or Pastors. To occupy is to walk closely with the Lord, to see and behold His glory for ourselves, to do exactly what He tells us to do, and to take the message of His glory to whatever world He places us in.

Abraham Kuyper said, "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'" So this message of Christ's glory must also be evident outside the Church walls, and spill into the streets of the earth.

We occupy for one purpose, and one purpose only – that the glory of God would fill the earth.

Occupying is not our mission. John Piper was right when he said, "missions (or occupying) exists because worship doesn’t." Ultimately, we desire God to recieve more glory.

David’s cries out in his final prayer in Psalm 72: "Let the whole earth be filled with His glory!" This is our prayer in this generation.

But we also understand that in order for God to fill the earth with His glory, He has to fill us with His glory. In order for us to occupy all streets for the glory of God, the glory of God has to take up the occupation in our own heart.

God Has Prepared in Advance

I absolutely love the idea that God is working behind the scenes and is preparing good things for our lives.

God not only goes with me, He goes on before me to prepare the way.

Ephesians 2:10 lays the groundwork for this Biblical truth: "For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live]."

God has already prepared in advance, the good things that you are called to do for Him. We don't come up with them on our own.

Our goal as followers of Christ is not to come up with good ideas or plans, but to seek out God ideas and plans, and to walk in them.

Our heroes in the Bible set the precedent for this kind of thinking: "So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things? If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own." (Romans 4:1-3)

Are you trying to be right on your own? Or are you entrusting yourself to God, who always gets things right? Let's make it our aim to enter into what God is already doing for us.