Seeing him who is invisible

“By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.” (Hebrews 11:27)

I love the Bible. No matter how many times you and I read a verse, God always manages to pull something out we’ve never read before. It’s like He slips in and adds stuff in between our reading. It’s usually not even a whole verse. It may just be a phrase or a word. Much like our verse today.

Have you ever seen a cartoon or an old show where a character is hypnotized? They are placed into a trance and “awakened” to an altered state of consciousness. Under the voice of the hypnotist, they may see and hear things that the rest of the audience cannot see or hear. They may act totally out of character, do things that in their “right” mind they couldn’t do, and they are totally oblivious to the people and their surroundings. It can be amusing at times, other times it can be quite amazing. In reality people around us go to hypnotists all the time in order to quit smoking, overcome childhood trauma, and a whole litany of other things. We as Christians disregard these activites and condemn them wholesale as being evil. We condemn people for becoming involved in cults as being ignorant or blind – they have been brainwashed. While that may be true, at least they are totally committed and sold out to the voice of their leader. They will do whatever they are told simply because the voice of their master said to – despite the outcome or no matter their surroundings. They simply obey. And they receive the outcome of their actions – whether good or bad.

Such is the insight of the last phrase of this verse: “as seeing him who is invisible.” I would submit that the majority of Christians in the world today are not totally sold out to the Voice of our Master. When we hear the Voice speak to us concerning something in our lives, we listen with our ears but our eyes are still on our surroundings. We are divided in our being. When God directs us to go across a room and speak to someone we don’t know and give them a word from Him we first consider the room, we look around at the others in that room, we look at the intended receiver of the word, we try to reason out why this word for this person, etc, etc. If we were totally sold out, totally committed, we would simply get up, cross the room, introduce ourselves, and give them the message God sent us with – not expecting an immediate response, not expecting a reward, just simple obedience. Pretty scary isn’t it? And that is simply asking you to cross the room and say a sentence or two. Nobody is threatening you with violence, nobody is likely to torture or kill you, it’s just that you might feel foolish or risk ridicule. Yet this whole chapter of Hebrews tells of those who did the equivalent or more of this and they are called those the world is not worthy of – because they were totally sold out. They saw Him Who Is invisible.

How about you, my friend? Have you ever experienced this Voice speaking to you concerning a person, an event, or an action – then obeyed? How did it turn out? Granted, you may never know. Sometimes your obedience was simply watering a word that had been sown by somebody else. Maybe you were to initial sower of a word into that person’s life. Every so often, though, you get to be the reaper, the one who sees the end result. Those are the payoffs – when you actually get to see the results of your actions! Ahhh, but on the other side, have you ever heard that Voice giving you direction and then NOT obeyed? How did that work out for you? Perhaps you wrestled with yourself about not doing what you were supposed to, you felt guilty, felt like you let God down. I won’t say “good”, but I will say I’m glad you felt that way because that was the Holy Spirit teaching you to obey next time.

We often read the Bible and see the impact our forefathers in the faith had upon their world and wish we could do the same. Trust me, our world needs the impact of strong Christian men and women now more than ever! I have often said I wish I could do the things people in the Bible did, see what they did, follow as they did. I am fully aware my name will never be recorded in God’s Hall of Faith (as in Hebrews 11) – I have not shown myself worthy of such honor. And if I did good works simply for the goal or being recognized as one of God’s honored and favored ones, my works would burn in the judgment.

For you see, there is an additional layer to this verse. We don’t obey as robots – we don’t lose our ability to choose. Instead, we see Him Who Is invisible, we hear Him Who Is inaudible, and we desire to serve and please Him. And there is the difference between 99% of us Christians and those who are actually making a difference in our world. Their gaze is fixed upon things above, their ears are attuned to things above, and their hearts are beating to the heartbeat from above. They desire to please only Him, they desire to only serve His purpose, they want no other accolades than to hear “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” No, they are not Christian zombies. Far from it. They are more alive than the world can ever know. It’s just that the veil has been pulled back for them and they have seen things that have forever changed their perspective. Their GPS has been set for home and that guides their lives forever.

It is my desire for you, my friend, that God would grant you that honor. May He show you His glory in such a way that it ignites within you the desire to serve and please only Him. May you develop a passion for Him that can never be satisfied by anything this world can offer. May God spark a flame within you that will burn with an eternal, ever-increasing light that will point others to the Father. May you be granted the honor of being listed in God’s Hall of Faith.

Be blessed.