While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
" + "Doubtless, we have all heard the phrases "Seeing is believing" or "I'll believe it when I see it" more than once in our lifetimes. More often than not, we heard these phrases and even said them ourselves ignorantly and innocently without recognizing how insidiously we were being trained and training others in pornography, that is, justifying ourselves by what we see. We failed and in some senses we still fail to see how such statements and false information, judgments, and beliefs privilege that which is temporal, transitory, and fleeting over against that which is eternal, or has no beginning or ending. In short, we fail to see how we privilege nothing (that which is seen) over something (that which is not seen), that which is not real (the temporal) over that which is real (the eternal).
" + "This should cause us to ask ourselves: "Who or what do we really have faith in?" and "Who or what do we really hope for?" Brothers and sisters, faith is a living channel of trust that stretches between us and God; it is the object of faith—God—that renders faith faithful. It is our belief in the absolute reality of God that binds us completely to Him and incorporates us into Him. More, God does not lodge the effectiveness of believing in Him in trinkets, incantations, statues or idols, or anything that we can see (Romans 1:18 - 25). God filled and fills the void between us and Him with Himself (Hebrews 6:13 - 20; Hebrews 11). When we were dead in our sins and united with the world in friendship and thus bound in our enmity against God, God spared no expense - even His only begotten Son, the Word made flesh - that we might be saved; God gave Himself that we might be His enemies no more (Romans 5:12 - 21; 8:31 - 39). Because He loves us so much, God gave us God (John 1:1 - 18; John 3:16).
" + "We must no longer continue to be deceived. Seeing is not believing; rather, believing is seeing. Belief in what we see is a wicked device of Satan used to separate us from the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. To the degree that we place our trust in people and things we witness our spiritual blindness and utter "lostness," that is, our complicity with lies and the father of lies (Jeremiah 17:5; Romans 1:18 - 25; John 8:44).
" + "A belief is what an individual lives by, indeed what an individual walks after (Romans 8:1 - 4); God wills and ordains that we live by faith and not by sight (Habakkuk 2:4; 2 Corinthians 5:7). Our walking after what we see such that we continue to change the truth of God into a lie frustrates the effective and efficacious working of God's grace in our lives. It disables our true confession of and belief in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior; it leaves us comfortless. Paul, the Apostle, speaks often of God giving us the earnest of His Spirit (Ephesians 1:14; 2 Corinthians 5:5), alluding to Jesus' promise of another comforter, the Holy Ghost, (John 14:16 - 17, 26). This Comforter allows our continual confession of Jesus Christ as Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3). Moreover, our belief and faith in the absolute integrity of the one true God, that is, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost insures our ability to judge or discern all things (1 Corinthians 2:9 - 16) so that when the end comes we shall be able to see Jesus Christ as he is (1 John 3:2). Be encouraged, brothers and sisters! Let us pledge to put on the mind of Christ and to live like Christ not because it is easy but precisely because it is hard (1 Corinthians 9:24 - 27; 2 Corinthians 4:7 - 9)! May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all!
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