The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"An Opportunity"
Presently, it seems that physically seeing, hearing, and touching the Lord Jesus Christ would be a great advantage in walking with God. Actually, it would not.
"We walk by faith, not by sight" (II Corinthians 5:7).
God, in the perfection of His ways, has willed this life to be lived by trusting His heart rather than seeing His hand. The day of sight, sound, and the sensory will blessedly come as eternity will be lived in the obviously known presence of God. This is not that day. No, this is the day wherein glories of grace only presently possible occur in His sons and daughters who know Him by faith, and who seek to trust Him no less than if He were vividly at hand as well as in heart.
"We look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are unseen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal" (II Corinthians 4:18).
Much can be said of navigating by a North Star seen, as it were, by spirit rather than eye. In personal terms, let us consider how our Father must be blessed when we "behold" Him by trust rather than sight. Scripture clearly declares that we please God by faith (Hebrews 11:5-6). We bring Him joy and literal delight as we respond to His Spirit and His Word in a manner that will not be possible in our Lord's direct presence. Indeed, you and I can please God right now in ways available and only possible right now.
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1; emphasis added).
Somewhere just now, a hurting, battered, and shattered believer raises his heart toward Heaven to express faith in God. "I trust You, Father, I praise You, and I thank You." Much happens as our brother uses what may seem to be his last breath in trusting the Father he knows cannot and will not fail him. The Father responds, likely in ways no eyes can see, but which his trusting son knows. Our brother glorifies God thereby, perhaps in view of Heaven and angels only. Most of all, he blesses his Lord's heart. Our hurting, battered, and shattered believer pleases God in a manner that will not be possible in Heaven as the Holy Spirit leads him in a devotion solely based on heart, rather than sight, sound, and the senses. "Glorify ye the Lord in the fires" (Isaiah 24:15).
We shall not pass this way again, this way of "we walk by faith and not by sight." Let us rejoice with all our hearts! However, let us also realize and embrace an opportunity that will not be available when we shall forever behold our Lord "face to face" (I Corinthians 13:12). To trust God's heart when we cannot see His hand affords us a privileged responsibility we will look back on from our eternal abode with much gratitude. And, perhaps with the desire that we had better availed ourselves of an opportunity "to walk and to please God" on pathways that were dark to our eyes, but glimmered to our hearts with the light of the One we pleased in a manner only possible in this present way, this way of faith (I Thessalonians 4:1).
"The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy."
(Psalm 147:11)
Weekly Memory Verse
My brethren, count it all joy when fall into diverse temptations, knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
(James 1:2-3)
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