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Food for thought: Seeing beyond

From The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out by Dan Stone and Greg Smith:
[I]n the here and now, God has designed His kingdom to work by faith. God could have placed the eternal in the visible realm. His eternal kingdom would then be plainly seen. But if He had done that, there wouldn't be any faith. Everything would, in fact, be exactly as it appears to be, and faith would be pointless.

But the whole universe operates on faith. We, in particular, were designed to operate by faith. We have the privilege of looking through the seen and temporal to the unseen and eternal. By the spirit of God we discern what, from God's perspective, is taking place in the seen and the temporal around us.

That's how Jesus lived. He saw the seen and temporal around Him, but when the man stretched out his withered hand, Jesus didn't see the withered hand as ultimate. When they brought Jesus five loaves and two fish, He didn't see that insufficiency as ultimate. When they took Him to the dead girl, He didn't see that death as ultimate. In each case Jesus saw beyond the outward appearance to what His Father was doing. He lived in another kingdom. He lived in another realm. He invites you and me to do the same.


(Image: mine)