When I was a child, I was intrigued, and a little scared, of the “magic” mirrors that you often find at the town fairs. I remember walking into these large rooms filled with all kinds of mirrors that created a kind of maze you would have to work your way through. The person I saw reflected in those mirrors was very different to what I knew I looked like in real life. Seeing myself with a huge head or gigantic feet, or maybe a freakishly long body was somewhat unsettling. The feeling of being lied to by something that I usually trusted to tell me the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, worked havoc with my perceived reality.
As an adult, sometimes I still have that same feeling looking at my reflection in a mirror, and wondering whether it’s telling me the truth or showing me another distorted perception of my reality. The mind is so powerful and can be useful in discerning what is true and what is not. But for it to tell us the truth, it must be grounded in the One absolute Truth: God and His Word.
I want to share four examples with you of people in the Bible who learned this lesson and can serve as examples for us today. Allow God to speak truth to your heart, and do not let your heart deceive you with those mistaken perceptions which can easily be believed about your circumstances.
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Elisha and his Servant (2 Kings 6)
“We are surrounded!”, exclaimed the prophet’s servant. What he was seeing was a great army approaching Jerusalem with the intention of annihilating the people of Israel. His eyes saw something that terrified him, but the prophet asked God to open his eyes so that he could see the reality of what was actually happening. God answered the prayer and opened the servant’s eyes, and “…behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17b).
When his eyes were opened to the truth, his reality changed. He was no longer afraid of what was coming, but was able to walk confidently into the future, because he knew that those who were with him were more than the enemy’s army.
In the same way, no matter what you are facing today, God is telling you: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you!”
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The Crippled Man at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5)
Jesus had gone up to Jerusalem, and John tells us that He and the disciples approached a place called Bethesda, which is a pool of water where people could receive healing. There was a paralyzed man who had been this way for 38 years, but he had never been healed at the poolbecause he had no one to put him into the water to receive his healing.
Jesus saw him lying there in the desperation and in resignation to the perception that his circumstances would never change, and asked him a very important question: “Do you want to be healed?”
No matter how many years you have waited, asked, or positioned yourself for a miracle, when Jesus comes into your life, reality arrives. Truth comes with healing, health, strength, and purpose. Today He asks you: “Do you want to receive what I have for you?”
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The Feeding of the 5,000 (Luke 9)
Jesus has retreated to a deserted place with His disciples, and the crowd finds them there. They want to hear Jesus and also ask Him to perform miracles on their behalf. This is one of the few stories found in all four of the Gospels. So, after an entire day of teaching and ministering to their spiritual needs, the crowd is hungry. The disciples tell Jesus that He should send the crowd away because they have no food for them and they are far from town.
Jesus tells them something interesting: “You give them something to eat.” “What?! But we don’t have the resources needed to feed so many people”, was the response of these men of faith. They only had five loaves and two fish (I’ve always wondered why so many people hadn’t prepared a bit better for their day in the countryside). Jesus prayed, and what they had was miraculously multiplied, and the whole crowd ate until they were satisfied—and there was even food left over!
What need do you have right now? Perhaps your perception is that you don’t have the necessary resources, but Jesus says to you: “What do you have in your hands?” Because when you place what you have in His hands, it will be enough to do what God is asking you to do. His provision will come—don’t let yourself be convinced by what is in your bank account; the reality is that you have a God who owns all the resources in the world. He has promised to care for you, that is the truth.
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Jesus on the Cross (Matthew 27)
It was a very dark and sorrow–filled afternoon, and three men had been sentenced to death by crucifixion—one of the cruelest executions ever practiced. Having committed no crime, Jesus is counted with the men who have received that death sentence on that day. His disciples were devastated; His followers doubted the truth of His claims to be the Messiah, Savior, Son of God. How could He suffer all this if everything He said were true? It was a terrible crisis of faith from which many would not return: the perceived failure of the Messiah.
I can imagine the people who stood at the foot of the cross during those long, tortuous hours. Surely they wept, asking God for mercy, confused and crushed in heart and spirit. When they finally heard His last words, “It is finished!”, they undoubtedly did not understand what they were seeing and hearing. He was dead?! How could that be? And with His death, all their hope seemed to have slipped away.
But… their perception was not the reality of what was actually taking place on that cross of suffering and mortal death. The truth was that Jesus had won a great victory! His words signaled a victory in the spiritual realm, not the end of His earthly life. Jesus conquered death and sin that Good Friday.
And after three days, He rose again! The defeat that everyone had seen and perceived as the end of everything was actually the victory that would begin an eternity with God.
Jesus is Alive!
Truth Conquers Perception!
Holy Week and the celebration of Easter Sunday are here, why not take some time to study a little more about the truth that Jesus offers us through the cross? The study Unseen Easter is a resource that, over the course of 7 days, will lead you in a study of the truth about everything that happened during that Holy Week.
Join us in learning the truth about that Unseen Easter!
START UNSEEN EASTER
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