Introduction
The Lord God Almighty created all worlds, both the seen and the unseen, and He created man and woman for His pleasure to multiply and inhabit the earth and give Him glory. Humans are three-dimensional beings, consisting of body, spirit, and soul (see our article: Body, Soul, and Spirit: A Biblical Perspective). He equipped us with eyes, ears, and senses so that we can see, hear, taste, and smell the wonders of the Lord’s creation and experience His goodness in this physical world, as Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
But what about the unseen spiritual world? How can our souls navigate this realm? How can we discover the goodness of the spiritual world? What does it mean to have spiritual eyes, ears, and senses in the unseen world? Additionally, how can we maintain the health of our souls? While we have physical eyes and ears to guide us through our daily lives, the Lord has also granted us spiritual eyes and ears to help us navigate the unseen world while we are still in this physical realm.
Keep Our Eyes on the Lord Jesus
In the Gospels, the Lord Jesus teaches us extensively about the health of our spiritual eyes and ears. One well-known passage that illustrates this is Matthew 6:19-23, where the Lord teaches about laying up treasures in heaven and the lamp of the body. Let us apply these teachings to the topic at hand.
19 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on the earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal;
The treasures on the earth are everything that you think is yours. However, none of them are real; they are yours for a moment, and then they are gone.
20 however, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves do not break in nor steal;
Treasures in heaven are laid up when you are praising and glorifying the Lord. Every word you use to glorify the Lord is your treasure in heaven; build them up more and more. The Lord is your safe keeper, and every word the Lord hears, He keeps it for you.
21 for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Whatever you think about, your heart is there. If you think about the Lord, your heart will be there to glorify the Lord by heart, not just by mouth.
22 The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye may be clean, your whole body will be full of light.
This verse does not speak about physical eyes but about the spiritual eye of your body. The spiritual eye gets light from prayer. If you do not stay in prayer, your spiritual eye enters darkness.
23 However, if your eye may be bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore, the light that is in you may be darkness, how great that darkness!
If your spiritual eye gets darkened, your spirit is lost.
Moreover, the Lord Jesus teaches us in many places throughout the Gospels that we must listen to His words attentively, not just with our physical ears, but also with our spiritual ears, and we must believe in His word. Key passages that highlight the importance of hearing the Word of God and believing can be found in Matthew 11:15, Matthew 13:9, Mark 4:9, Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 29, and Revelation 3:6, 13, 22.
From Matthew 6:19-23 and these passages, we can learn that we should use our voices to glorify the Lord, our ears to listen to His Word and the wonders of creation, and our eyes to read His word and admire His creation. If we do all of these, we must also open our spiritual eyes and ears to see and listen with our hearts, and praise the Lord God Almighty, giving Him glory from the depths of our hearts. The Lord gave us all the means within our physical being to use them to connect with our spiritual being and reach the depth of our souls; however, this connection between the physical and spiritual must be made through the Word of God to receive the true voice and light for our souls; the Word of God is the only true connection path between our physical being and the spiritual being.
Furthermore, when we read this passage of Scripture, we should deeply think about what the Lord teaches us when He says: “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” So, what does the Lord want to tell us when He says, “If then the light in you is darkness”? Here, the Lord wants to emphasize that we need to meditate on the Holy Word; if we do not meditate on the Word, our spiritual eyes and ears within us become darkened, and we become spiritually blind and deaf. Moreover, if our spiritual eyes and ears are not tuned to the Word of God, then we cannot understand the Word of God. As a consequence, we risk becoming dull in hearts like those described in the passages of Scripture found in Isaiah 6:9-10, Mark 4:12, Matthew 13:14-15, and Luke 8:10.
Therefore, if our hearts are dull, we cannot control where our life will end and what bad things we might do; our spiritual compass, guided by the Holy Spirit, is lost. So, what might happen to us if we do not watch and pray? There are many examples in the Holy Bible of situations where one can end up if their spiritual compass, guided by the Holy Spirit, is lost. We will share a couple of relevant passages from the Scriptures: Romans 1:21-25 and 1 Corinthians 5:1-2.
Romans 1:21 For having known God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into a likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.
24 Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,
25 who changed the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
1 Corinthians 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even among the Gentiles, that one of you has his father's wife.
2 And you are puffed up, and did not rather mourn, that he that had done this deed might be taken away from among you.
We can read further in the Old Testament about the many stories of darkness that overtook the children of God when they rejected the Word of God, and what happened to them when the Lord God Almighty lifted up His hand from them.
Conclusions
In conclusion, it should be scary for us to enter a state of spiritual darkness. The Trinity of God (God the Father, God the Son, Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit) created all things, seen and unseen, and He sent the beloved Son of God into the world to show us the way to heaven and give us the Word of God. Therefore, we must approach the reading and meditation of the Word of God with an open heart, rather than a critical one, seeking to find mistakes and avoid criticizing and judging the things of the Bible. Let’s come to the Word of God with an open heart to meet the Lord Jesus, and we will hear His voice in our hearts, and God will know us, and we will become His sheep and follow Him as John 10:27 says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” Our hearts can be undulled only when we receive the Lord Jesus into our hearts, repent, and be baptized in the water through immersion, and seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the promise of the Lord Jesus to His followers, is given to all who believe in the Lord Jesus as their Savior and seek Him to baptize them (Luke 24:49). He is the only person on earth today who can guide us out of the darkness by reading and meditating in the Word of God.
Meditation Tasks:
- Meditate on our Comments Mark 4:10-12.