2 Corinthians 5:7 “(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
True sight requires two things. Eyes that see, and light to be able to see.
As our eyes see things in front of us, and transpose them into our minds in pictures….so faith, which looks to God, sees HIm….and transposes Him and His character into our hearts, minds and wills….as we yield to the Light shone.
2 Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Honesty is essential to spiritual growth. We must come to the Light, and stay in the Light, and obey the Light.
Remember the woman taken in adultery….she was the only one to stay before the Lord, and hear His judgment….the others left. (John 8:1-12) She also was the only one to be forgiven.
We need to get honest with God, and with ourselves.
And the Word of God, His scriptures, are our mirror to look into, and the Holy Spirit is the Light to shine on us, to show us how we are, and what we are doing.
James 1:22-25 “But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”
What is it that this man looks into….and continues therein? The perfect law of liberty….or the Word of God.
Notice it calls the Word, the perfect law of liberty.
Many people who have not much experience with the greatness and goodness in the scriptures, might disagree. They might say that there are too many rules, too many requirements to be a source of liberty.
But true spiritual freedom comes with our moving further and further away from sin, and its power…..and closer and closer to Christ Jesus our Lord.
And the greatest means of doing this, is the Word of God. Reading it and praying over it, to get the sweetness from it.
Psalm 119:18 “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.
I am a stranger in the earth: hide not Thy commandments from me.”
How many times we feel a “stranger in the earth”…..not sure of where we are heading, or what we are to be doing about it.
We need the doctrine that drops like rain.
Deuteronomy 32:2 “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, My speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:”
Rain in scripture is from the Lord. The Lord promised the early rain and the latter rain for crops and refreshing in Israel. (Hosea 6:3)
And so He promises His Word for accomplishing what He pleases.
Isaiah 55:10-11 “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”
When we see by faith the Lord….then His likeness is impressed upon our consciousness….and we are “changed into the same image”.
His character is implanted within us by the Holy Spirit at new birth….but this “changing” is by seeing the light of His character, and yielding to it…at the moment we see it, so that we are made (molded) into HIs example, then.
Faith is our spiritual eyes to see what God’s Will is.
Faith reflects what it sees in the Lord, back into our minds and hearts…
……and the Word of God enlightens our Way, giving a cleansing and refreshing effect by “the washing of the water by the Word.” (Ephesians 5:25-27)
For we walk by faith, not by sight…means that we keep ourselves in the Light of His Word,
…..and keep ourselves ever looking to Christ Jesus, yielding to the change the Lord will make by His cleansing from sin, and self…
….and by the refreshing rain of doctrine, by the understanding given by His Holy Spirit.
Preaching, Teaching, and Notes 