A New Way of Seeing

NEWSONG: Revelation Song by Gateway Worship Kari Jobe off the CD iWorship 24:7

VERSE: Acts 26:14b-18
“’Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ Then I asked, ‘Who are you Lord?’ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

THOUGHTS:
“I will never forget the moment Professor Ray Anderson captured this experience with a story that eased my pain. He told his systematic theology class about a woman who, in her later years decided to begin to play the piano. She searched for the best piano teacher she could possibly find and asked him how she could become a master pianist such as himself. He looked hesitantly at her, asking her if she was sure she wanted to do this. He explained to her that at her age, the woman’s bones had naturally calcified and were configured in a certain way. To play the piano, she would engage in finger exercises that would break the calcium down, thereby giving her supple, flexible fingers that would allow her fingers to extend to the various keys. He warned her that the finger exercises and the calcium breakdown would be excruciatingly painful, as if her fingers were being smashed.”

That story is one that is not only true for the girl named Cassie, who wrote it but for all of us to an extent also. We all have times in our lives that something is being broken down. I want to take us further in this journey with Christ, further in this realigning of ourselves with Him.

Lets look at it this way to begin with. A young child gets glasses. They are very small, very slim, very thin. But as that child grows into a teenager, they need a better prescription and they get a new “set of rims.” The style changes, and so does the size shape and everything else. As they grow older the same process morphs again and again, change happens because change is needed.

Just as the prescription changes and grows into something different for that child our spiritual lenses have to be constantly changing and growing. As I said last week the Christian journey involves walking with the Spirit and with a community of believers. We need to always be striving to have our view be developed by these two different informers.

Many times because of how we grew up we have a worldview and a way of seeing that is so set in stone. We feel sometimes because we “know” the Bible so well that everything we think is right. But we need to constantly be seeing things in new ways. One thing I thought was really cool in a book I am reading is when it said that: “when it comes to really learning from the Bible, we run into a problem: believers tend to know “Jesus stories” a little to well. . . .like Jesus’ disciples, we are to be surprised, admonished, and transformed.”

I have really been growing lately and God is continually changing what my lens looks like! Just today I have had to change my outlook as a Christian on some political issues because someone has helped me to see something in a different way. Our lens and our way of seeing shouldn’t be something that is so dogmatic and so set in stone that we never change.

We need to constantly be developing and changing the ways that we look at the world, with the leadership of the Spirit and others. Are you so stuck in what you see that you cant see past your own nose? Are you willing to look through a new set of lenses, not your own, but the Spirits?

Next week: A new way of believing . . .