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The Lighthouse and the Battleship

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2 Peter 1:2 May grace (God’s favor) and peace (which is perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, and freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts) be multiplied to you in [the full, personal, precise, and correct] knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

For several months I have been asking the Lord to help me understand the remaining phrase in Revelation 3:18:…and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. The two questions I have been asking are: How do I anoint my eyes with eye salve that I may see? Once I have that answered the next question becomes, What difference does it make – to see spiritually?

Two battleships assigned to a training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days, making visibility very difficult. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities. Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, “Light, bearing on the starboard bow.”” “Is it steady or moving astern?” the captain called out. Lookout replied, “Steady, captain,” which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship. The captain then called to the signalman, “Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees.” Back came a signal, “Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees.” The captain said, “Send, I’m a captain, change course 20 degrees.” “I’m a seaman second class,” came the reply. “You had better change course 20 degrees.” By that time, the captain was furious. He spat out, “Send, I’m a battleship. Change course 20 degrees. “Back came the flashing light, “I’m a lighthouse.”

What difference does it make to see spiritually? Ask the captain of the battleship. When the Captain of our Lighthouse speaks we need to make the necessary adjustments to correct the course of our lives to Him. To answer the question, What does it mean to see spiritually, you need to understand Jesus’ exhortation. One of the clues to understanding Jesus’ exhortation is found in Mark 7:18 And He said to them, Then are you also unintelligent and dull and without understanding? Do you not discern and see that whatever goes into a man from the outside cannot make him unhallowed or unclean,…

Seeing, or not seeing, is connected to understanding. If you do not have a full, personal, precise, and correct knowledge of God (the Father) and of Jesus, you will not cooperate with His processes and purposes for your life. Henry Blackaby in Experiencing God states: “Your walk with God (Father, Son, and Spirit) is the single most important aspect of your life. If it is not as it should be, nothing else will function properly.”

You receive a full, personal, precise, and correct knowledge of the Godhead when you seek Jesus to understand Who He and the Godhead are. This revelation becomes your vision, and your light, guiding you into becoming like Jesus.

Can You See Him?

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Luke 24:16 AMP Classic “But their eyes were held, so that they did not recognize Him.”

Scholars, theologians, and Christians for the past several years have debated why the Jesus was unrecognizable in His post resurrection body. Many have postulated, myself included, that since Jesus was in His glorified, resurrected body it was difficult for those who knew Him by His earthly body to comprehend that this was the One Who had been born of a virgin, lived, bled and died. But may I suggest to you an even deeper explanation? May I suggest that what kept them from “seeing” Him was the fact that they hadn’t yet accepted that He was their Resurrected and Living Christ. They hadn’t accepted the crucifixion of Christ was for their resurrection and as a result the stone that covered Jesus’ tomb remained rolled into place shutting the followers of Christ from seeing and receiving His resurrection. Mark 9:9 states: And as they were coming back down the mountain, He admonished and expressly ordered them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man should rise from among the dead. Oswald Chambers adds: “As the disciples were commanded, you should also say nothing until the Son of Man has risen in you— until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you truly understand what He taught while here on earth…Our Lord doesn’t hide these things from us, but we are not prepared to receive them until we are in the right condition in our spiritual life..We must have a oneness with His risen life before we are prepared to bear any particular truth from Him. Do we really know anything about the indwelling of the risen life of Jesus? The evidence that we do is that His Word is becoming understandable to us.”

As we proceed to Pentecost have we really answered the questions: Are you in the right condition in your spiritual life to receive Jesus as your Risen Savior? Savior from what and who? Do you have a oneness with His crucified life in order to have oneness with His Resurrected life? The evidence lies simply in the fact that His Words are becoming more understandable to us. You now see Him, and recognize the ways that He speaks, because you have been crucified with Jesus, and resurrected to a new, born-again life by the Holy Spirit. This is normal Christianity. This is the eternal life Jesus spoke of and defined in John 17:3. To know Him is to love Him. To love Him is to obey Him.