I counsel you to buy from Me... salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. (Revelation 3:18 ESV)
We have to test everything we think we see and know by its effect in our
lives. You and I may have an enormous amount of what we think to be spiritual
knowledge; we have all the doctrines, all the truths. We can box the compass
of evangelical doctrine; and what is the effect? It is not seeing, beloved, in
a true spiritual sense, if we are not changed. Yes, seeing is to be changed,
and it is not seeing if it does not bring that about. It would be far better
for us to be stripped of all that and to be brought right down to the point
where we really do see just a little that makes a difference. We must be very
honest with God about this. Oh, would we not sooner have just a very little
indeed that was a hundred percent effective, than a whole mountain of
knowledge, ninety percent of which counted for nothing? We must ask the Lord
to save us from advancing beyond spiritual Life, advancing, I mean, with
knowledge, a kind of knowledge, presuming to know. You know what I mean. Real
seeing, Paul says, is being changed, and being changed is a matter of seeing
as by the Lord the Spirit. So we will pray to see....
It is never too late to get spiritual sight, however
blind we may have been, and for however long, if we really mean business
with the Lord. But do not forget that this is a matter of being honest
with God. The Lord Jesus said a wonderful thing to Nathanael. Nathanael
was perilously near that double blindness. At the moment when he allowed
himself to give expression to a popular prejudice, he was very near the
danger zone. He said, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" That is
a popular prejudice. A popular prejudice has robbed many a man and woman
of knowing God’s fuller thoughts. Prejudices may take many forms. Let us
be careful.... If you are
in danger through your prejudice, beware; forsake your
prejudice, be open-hearted. Be an Israelite in whom there
is no Jacob, no guile, open-hearted to the Lord, and you
will see.