Luke 13:11-13 AMP And there was a woman there who for eighteen years had had an infirmity caused by a spirit (a demon of sickness). She was bent completely forward and utterly unable to straighten herself up or to look upward. And when Jesus saw her, He called [her to Him] and said to her, Woman, you are released from your infirmity! Then He laid [His] hands on her, and instantly she was made straight, and she recognized and thanked and praised God.
In the last three posts (The Admiral, He meets us where we are, Jesus Filter) we have taken a journey of perspective. I really believe that our false perspective shaped by experience and worldly deception is the very place where the Holy Spirit pitches a revelation tent of truth for the renewing of our minds. Our greatest act of faith is to surrender our self-reliant thinking and worldly wisdom to the mind of Christ and wisdom of God. That is where right believing takes shape. Believing leads to seeing. Seeing increases faith. We see how good God is and then believe that He is even better than we thought. Then we see more of how good God is and keep on spiralling up and up. We come into agreement with God’s master plan of Christ in us the hope of glory. We see as He sees, we live His life and we do what He did. We become Jesus to the person in front of us. That is amazing, overwhelming and humbling in the same moment.
So the journey (the process we walk out in this life) isn’t to condition better moral behavior out of self-effort with the threat of “or else” hanging over our head. That is religion and it is empowered by the enemy. It traps us and keeps us from the truth of who we are in Christ because of what Jesus did. Religion uses fear to separate us from God, plant seeds of guilt and shame and drive us into self-centered lives of bondage. Jesus died to free us from all that. The journey, the process is to grow in faith as our minds are transformed by the continuing revelation of our amazing Abba through the love of Jesus and union with the Holy Spirit. It is that simple. He does, we receive.
I was reading a devotional by Joseph Prince yesterday and this quote jumped out at me. I love how God does this kind of thing. He was confirming the revelation “He meets us where we are.” Check this out.
Imagine being bowed over for 18 years. All you would see is the dust on the ground. That was the predicament of the woman in Luke 13. Dust was all her eyes fell on, all the time, everywhere she went, until she became dust-conscious. Thank God she finally saw the beautiful feet of Jesus, who brought her good news and raised her up.
She sees His feet where she is looking! Come on that is powerful. She doesn’t see a face but feet. Then I started thinking about how often we are looking for one thing and maybe we are missing the obvious. What if this woman was crying out to see the face of God and she missed His feet? What if someone told here that “God doesn’t reveal Himself as feet based on 1st Unincluded 18:2.” What if she was so consumed by looking at the dirt or her own feet she missed His feet?
There is a famous selective attention video that demonstrates how we can miss the obvious when we are too focused. If you have time check this out before you read ahead. Selective Attention Test
In this video there are some kids passing a basket ball. Your task is to count how many times the ball is passed while you watch the video. When it is over you go around the room and everybody gives their count. There is a debate about why the observations might be slightly different. Then the teacher will ask about what was missed. There is a puzzled pause and everyone has that “what?” look on their face. Then the teacher will replay the video and tell the class to not count but just watch. Then to their amazement they see a person dressed in an ape suit step into the video and pass the ball with the kids. It is the craziest thing. You will swear that it is a different video but it isn’t. While you were watching you missed the obvious to concentrate on something else.
Maybe we should look for God in the middle of our circumstance. What if we expect one thing and all the while He is right there in front of us? Maybe we see a hand that is picking us up. Maybe we see His back while He is pointing out something on the horizon. Maybe we see His shoulder where He wants us to lay our head and “let it all out.” Maybe we see His robe to reveal our righteousness. Maybe we see a memory where He wants to take us to heal us or reveal something. Maybe we see a passage of scripture or a devotional or book we are reading because the Holy Spirit is teaching us something. Maybe we hear a melody or smell something that moves us. The list goes on and on.
Maybe we need to ask Him every day: “Reveal Yourself to me today Jesus. I know You are where I am so let me see You.” Look closely and I guarantee you will see His dusty feet right there in front of you. He is that good.
Yay Jesus!!!
Lance
alancetotheheart 