Christian Living

A FOCUS ON THE UNSEEN

by GLENN PEASE
01/26/22
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We are dealing here with a paradox, for how can we focus our eyes on the invisible? We can do so by recognizing that we have spiritual eyes as well as physical eyes. It is by means of these inner spiritual eyes that we see what cannot be seen by the physical eyes. God has given us many insights into the heaven He has prepared for us who love and trust His Son as Savior. We cannot see this heaven, but by believing what God has revealed we can see it with our inner eyes of faith. Paul is urging believers to make this realm the primary focus of our attention rather than the realm of what we call reality. This is the realm of the visible all about us that we see perpetually with our physical eyes. It is God’s creation, and it is beautiful and awesome in so many ways, but it is also full of the man made realities that capture our attention. In fact, it is this realm of the man made that captures the majority of our attention, and Paul is saying we are not to let it blot out our focus on what is in the realm of the unseen. Stop looking at the things that you see all the time and focus your inner eyes on the things that you cannot see. What you see is only temporary and will pass away, but what you cannot see will last forever. So, in the light of its eternal value, fix your eyes on what never passes away. This is what is meant by living with eternal values in view.

This was Paul’s perspective in life and it enabled him to suffer all manner of afflictions with a positive spirit saying, "I consider that our present sufferings—are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us!" (Romans 8:18) He had his eyes focused on the eternal rather than the things that pass away, and it made them so much easier to endure. He suffered a great deal, but it was no big deal to him because he had a higher focus that made even such painful experiences trivial compared to the pleasures that would be his forever.
This is what Christian optimism is all about. Without it we let our suffering and bad times lead us to depression and even despair. Not so for Paul, and he wants all believers to look at things just like he does. He wants us to see the unseen that never fades away, instead of focusing on the bad things that will soon cease to exist. This is what enables the Christian optimist to always rejoice in the Lord. Paul said, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.” Phil. 4:4 How can you possibly rejoice always in this fallen world? By fixing your eyes on the unseen. If you focus on the seen, it will often drag you down. If you focus on the unseen, it will lift you up to rejoice in the Lord always. A Christian optimist is always looking up to see what is unseen. Paul said in 2 Cor. 5:7, "We live by faith, not by sight." He defined faith like this in Heb. 11:1, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. "

I like the way it is all summed up in this version, "So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective. – Colossians 3:1-2 (MSG) Paul had many problems to face but his focus was on a higher level than his problems and he could write, " “I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14 He was always looking up.

I like the way pastor Davon Huss used worship to set his mind on things above. He wrote, "I constantly go back to worship songs and this helps me to praise the Lord. Worship renews us. It gives us a new perspective. In life it is easy to get tunnel vision. Focus on a problem so much that the problem just gets bigger and bigger. Worship renews us by getting our eyes off the problems, the tough situations, and focusing them on the one who is greater than all of this. When we worship, we are lifting up our spiritual eyes and see that God is greater than our problems."

He goes on to give this Biblical illustration of how seeing the unseen can change all that is seen. "David and his 600 men are outside of Israel because of King Saul’s jealousy. They live in a Philistine town called Ziklag and from Ziklag they raid the enemies of Israel and live on the plunder. On one such raid, as they came back home, the smoke was descending into the sky. Upon arrival they discover that their families had been taken captive by the Amalekites. Their despair was real. “So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.” 1 Samuel 30:4, NIV. Everyone was upset. “David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God.” 1 Samuel 30:6, NIV. How did David find strength in the Lord his God? Everyone there, his companions and spiritual advisors, were disheartened and unable to offer any advise, they wanted to stone him. No one was there to feed David so David had to feed himself. Knowing David he went away from everyone and began to worship. From that, David's perspective changed. David had learned to get his eyes off of the problems and onto God. I think as David began to adore His God, he began to think about all the times when God had helped him. God had delivered him from the paw of the lion, the paw of the bear, and the hand of Goliath. David began to think, “God has delivered me time and time again. He can deliver me now as well.” The account goes on in 1 Samuel 30 that they went after the Amalekites and they got everyone and everything back. David was renewed and able to go on and renew his men."

Our lives seldom face such a sad picture as that of David and his 600 men, but it can be sad enough to be very discouraging and put us into a negative view of life. Paul wants us to overcome all the realities of life that can be seen by seeing greater realities above, and so he writes again, "Ephesians 1:18-23 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." When the eyes of your heart are seeing this picture it makes the view of your physical eyes dim in seeing what is trivial and passing away. What is really real and unseen far surpasses the focus on what is seen. With the eyes of your heart you are seeing the Big picture.

Stephen Rowland’s column appears Wednesdays in The Daily Herald. In it he writes about this text telling us to focus on the unseen. He wrote, "Personally, I haven’t been too good at that over the years — sometimes an absolute failure. Probably well over 99% of my thoughts are on the everyday stuff of life: my job at GM; a book that I’m reading; what’s for supper tonight; maintenance I have to do on a car or bike; our health problems; our kids or grandkids; a shopping trip or a Kroger run; mowing the lawn; a movie we plan on watching — on and on the list goes. Actual thoughts about heaven, which I cannot see, are far and few between." Listen then to the results in his life by looking only to the seen and ignoring the unseen.

He goes on, "When all I dwell on in my thoughts is everyday life “stuff,” then when trouble comes, it’s pretty easy for me to get discouraged or depressed. When frustrations and disappointments come my way, I have a tendency to isolate and stew about them — probably because I’m an introvert. It’s not the best road to take. There’s been a couple of times in my life that I had to seek professional counseling. That’s embarrassing because your church friends might think there is something really wrong with you spiritually. I knew it wasn’t my spiritual walk; it was just life’s problems, and I wasn’t responding very well. Having to take an antidepressant for a short while to overcome depression is just something you don’t tell everyone about — they might think you are a mental case. It equates to “failure” in their eyes."

This is the typical story of believers who blind the eyes of their heart to the unseen world that limits them to a focus on the seen only. It is the cause of most all of what we would call poor Christian living and thinking. We need to follow Jesus in His choice to focus on the unseen. Look at Hebrews 12:2, "Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." His focus was not the cross with all of its pain, but the throne of heaven where He would soon sit with His heavenly Father in joy. He was focused on the joy ahead and not the painful death He had to soon endure. He could endure the cross because His eyes were on the joy of what the cross would produce for Him and the whole world. With eyes focused on the unseen, Jesus could see history's greatest evil as history's greatest good. Seeing things from God's point of view changes everything. Jesus is our example, and the result was He did not die in pain, but died instead in joy. The pain was real but it was soon over. The joy goes on forever.

It will be worth it all when we see Jesus,
Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ;
One glimpse of His dear face all sorrow will erase,
So bravely run the race till we see Christ.
— Esther Kerr Rusthoi

Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Helen Howarth Lemmel (1922)

The Apostle Paul was the man he was because he did turn his eyes upon Jesus. Spurgeon wrote this of Paul. "How was it that when cast down Paul was not destroyed-that when troubled he was not distressed? What sustained him? He gives us the key to this fortitude by telling us that he counted his afflictions light because they were, in his estimation, but for a moment ; and they were working out for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. He was calm and happy midst rage and tumult, violent prejudice, and adverse, and even disastrous, circumstances, because, in the language of the text, he looked not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen, reckoning that the things which are seen are not worth looking at, so transient are they, while the things unseen are of priceless worth, because they are eternal."

Let us be true followers of Jesus and Paul and live our lives with a focus, not on what can be seen, but on what can not be seen. Focus on the unseen and you can be full of joy no matter what problems you face.