IT MATTERS WHAT YOU SEE

Tuesday 5 November

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NKJV)

One of the most important things for a child of God is to know who you are. God’s word is clear that we are the ones responsible to live out our new identity in Christ. In both text verses we see a common word that ties them together. The word is behold or beholding. ‘Idou’ in the Greek means to see, observe or consider. So what are we supposed to see and consider? All things are become new!

Notice first what he didn’t tell you to see. He didn’t say see, old things are passed away. Why? Because God doesn’t want you to dwell on your past. Scripture seems to indicate this when Apostle Paul says ‘forgetting that which is behind, I press on toward the mark’. He was looking to the future rather than even looking at present circumstances. When he said ‘while we look not at the things which are seen but the things which are unseen’ it also confirms this.

The new creation doesn’t have a past only a glorious future while functioning in the present. The next question to ask is: what or who has become new? The answer is simple. The man in Christ which is your spirit. Your spirit that was ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ is gone and you have received a new spirit. Your old life is gone and your new life has come.

Instead of a nature of sin, you now have a nature of righteousness. Instead of a spirit of fear, you have a spirit of love, power and a sound mind which produces excellence. Instead of being darkness, you are now light in the Lord. These are just a few examples of the contrast between who you were before Christ and who you are presently in Christ.

Once we are able to behold or see the new creature we are in Christ we need to keep beholding or seeing who we are in the mirror of the Word of God. When you look into a mirror, who do you see? Yourself right? In the same way, when you look into the word, you see your true image reflected back to you. The gospels are the revelation of Jesus. The epistles are the revelation of YOU in Christ. This is where you should spend the majority of your time ‘looking’.

James 1:22-25 talks about looking into the ‘perfect law of liberty’ and says a person who is a hearer and not a doer is someone who beholds their face in a mirror and then goes away and forgets what he looked like. Two important things here. Firstly, it’s not a casual glance as you run out the door. It is an intentional contemplation that requires time and effort.

Secondly, study and meditation of the word is how you look at who you’ve become in Christ and hold that image in the forefront of your consciousness. You look and keep on looking until what you see in the word is what you outwork from your spirit and translate it into your actions. The new creature you see in the word is the identity that you begin to operate from and not what you see in the natural.

It matters what you see. If you look at what you can see with your physical eyes you will be walking around with the wrong perception of your real identity. Do you see all things are become new? In 2 Corinthians 5:17 See, implies seeing the unseen or seeing with the eyes of a prophet, ‘Chazah’ in Hebrew. Prophets saw visions. Predominantly, we see through the word which is our ‘more sure word of prophecy’ (2 Peter 1:19a).

What do you see? It will solely depend on which eyes you look with.

APPLICATION

Learn to see yourself the way you really are in Christ and not the natural way that you see yourself or how others may perceive you. You are who God says you are; that is your only true identity.