One morning this summer, I arose early to go to the farm and spray weeds. It was about an hour and a half before sunrise. After putting on my work clothes and shoes, I grabbed my glasses and headed out the door. I took off driving and immediately I was confronted by near blindness. I had to get within about 30 feet of a road sign to read it—and you all know how big those things are. My first thought was, “Wow, somehow my eyesight deteriorated overnight. Is this what it is like to go blind?” When I stopped at Loves to get something to drink, I reached up to my glasses to clean them. I didn’t have lenses in my glasses.
I could see, but not really. And that is exactly what Isaiah said as quoted by both Jesus and the apostles. “So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word: “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, saying, ‘GO TO THIS PEOPLE AND SAY: “HEARING YOU WILL HEAR, AND SHALL NOT UNDERSTAND; AND SEEING YOU WILL SEE, AND NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEARTS OF THIS PEOPLE HAVE GROWN DULL. THEIR EARS ARE HARD OF HEARING, AND THEIR EYES THEY HAVE CLOSED, LEST THEY SHOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, LEST THEY SHOULD UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEARTS AND TURN, SO THAT I SHOULD HEAL THEM.” (Act 28:25-27)
People see Jesus, but not really. Unless one looks at Jesus through the lenses of the Gospel, they end up seeing but not perceiving. People add their perceptions about the Son of God and maintain those perceptions in spite of over-whelming contradictory evidence from the Word of God.
For example, many see Jesus and perceive that all one has to do to go to Heaven is to give Jesus a verbal consent that he is the Son of God. However, when one looks through the lenses of the Word of God, it says “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21).
Seeing and perceiving are not the same. See through the lenses of the Gospel.
Ken Hamilton
Granite, OK