We sometimes think that the spirit world is going to begin when this one ends. That is not the case. This daily devotional looks at how disciples of Christ are to approach the seen and unseen world by discerning which is temporary and which is eternal.
Nuggets
- The spirit world isn’t going to begin when this world end.
- Seeing the unseen through Christ has to be a focused, intentional seeking of God so that we see and know Him.
- Things of this earth are temporary.
- Our souls are eternal.
Devotions in the The Unseen Spirit World series
This devotion is not only the last in the Spirit World series, but it is also the last in the group pulling off of Vincent’s sermon. And, it is the last in the self-discipline series.
I’ve put a lot of thought into how I wanted to land the self-discipline plane. We’ve had our individual series, but a couple months later, I would find something in another series that helped expand what we had already discussed.
So, I figured out a way to review everything and hopefully put all of the building blocks together.
But we have to land this devotion first.
Let's Put It into Context
The Holman Bible Dictionary didn’t have spiritual world and couldn’t give us a definition of spirit. The best they did was to say was “the kinship of spirit, breath, and wind is a helpful clue in beginning to understand spirit.”
Resource
Hmmm. Three invisible things.
Living in a Seen and Unseen World
“So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen …” (II Cor. 4: 18 CSB)
The spirit world isn’t going to begin when this world end. It is present now – we just can’t see it. Let’s see how we discern the spirit world in the physical world.
We said in the first devotion of this series that the spirit world has a component in our physical world because both God and Satan interact with us. Gray noted that that shoots down our belief that this world is first, and the spirit world comes after.
Technically, that isn’t correct. God is on His throne in His world now. Gray wrote, “What sights might we not see, at every moment of our existence, at every turning of our path, had we only eyes to see them.”
If we look at it through the lens of we have eternity now, that puts a different spin on death. No, these bodies are going to be shed through death, but we will live on in whatever form God has for us.
I guess I have always considered death to be like when, in Doctor Strange, the Ancient One pulled Stephen Strange’s astral form out of his physical form. Our soul — our spirit — will not die. I figured it just separated from this body.
This is really hitting me at the moment. In July, Pastor Chad dropped dead of a massive heart attack. Last month, Adam’s dad was killed instantly in a work-related accident.
We think of it in terms of they are gone. But what if it is this way? Gray wrote, “And death will be merely the giving of those eyes.”
Resource
If physical death is merely an opening of the eyes, it brings whole new meaning to open the eyes of our hearts in Ephesians 1: 18.
When we look at the fact that the spirit world is up and running now, we realize our transition to it will be seamless. We don’t have to go and hang out in the grave until God has a grand opening.
Doesn’t that give us assurance now? We can endure any pain because we know how this will end.
Jones noted that we can see God now — through faith. Faith is the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives.
Maclaren reminds us that the only way we can see the unseen is through Christ. We have to have ABCDed.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Resource
This has to be more than a quick glance. Seeing the unseen through Christ has to be a focused, intentional seeking of God so that we see and know Him.
Bradley said it all boiled down to attitude. Where were we going to focus our attention?
I think I may need to revise the definition of faith. Bradley included that faith is “… a belief in the existence of unseen spiritual things.” Our faith is the evidence we need to believe.
Resource
But let’s head at it another way. We just got done talking about discernment. Discernment means we can evaluate the situation and recognize right from wrong, gauging a situation and knowing how God would like us to act.
When we apply that here, disciples look at things seen and unseen and correctly discern what is from God. We can determine what God is telling us through the unseen.
Resource
This Temporary World or Eternal Life?
“… For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (II Cor. 4: 18 CSB)
This world is temporary. That is why we need to focus on eternal life.
We talked about focus a couple of paragraphs back. We are told that we need to focus on the important and the urgent, not the unimportant and that which is not urgent. We should focus on the lasting.
Things of this earth are temporary. “… Earth and heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them” (Rev. 20: 11 CSB). It isn’t going to be global warming that is going to kill this planet. It is going to be the Presence of God.
Why would God create a world that is not permanent? We could argue that the world God created was permanent until Adam and Eve committed the original sin.
Glossary
Be that as it may, God always knew that man was going to disobey Him and let sin into the world. He had the Plan of Salvation ready to go before He created the universe.
Glossary
God created us anyway. With sin, death, crucifixion, and resurrection all in place, He created us anyway.
But God created it so that sin would be temporary. His new Heaven and earth — and a new Jerusalem — will be permanent. It will be eternal.
Our souls are eternal. That means we need to focus on our eternal life. We have to ABCD.
Grace is a free and unmerited gift from Heavenly Father given through His Son, Jesus Christ that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers. Because of God’s infinite grace, He devised the Plan of Salvation that made Jesus our Redeemer in order to forgive us of our sins.
Salvation is the deliverance from the consequences of sin. This deliverance is necessitated by the original sin committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which made everyone sinners.
Sin is when we disobey God and break one of His laws and commandments. These laws and commandments not only show us what we have done wrong, but they also show us the character of God.
God designed the Plan of Salvation before man was even created and committed the first sin. This Plan is that Jesus is our Redeemer because He was born of a virgin, making Him 100% God and 100% man; gave His life on the cross for us so that His blood could pay the price for our sins; and because of God’s great might and power, rose from the grave, conquering death.
Jesus’ sacrifice purchased our redemption. Redemption is where something is used in exchange for something else to gain or regain something. Jesus took the consequences of our sin upon Himself so that we didn’t have to in order to restore our relationship with God.
Jesus substituted — became the propitiation — for us because He was the only perfect sacrifice that would be accepted. Jesus knew God’s wrath had to be appeased so He shed His blood to pay the price for our sins.
Our Savior became the atonement for our sins. Atonement is about repayment for a wrong. The repayment was the shedding of His blood.
Redemption allows us to receive forgiveness for our sins. Forgiveness is when God pardons us because we have broken His laws and commandments. We accept the pardon by letting go of the guilt and remorse that we feel because we have done something wrong. It is a conscious decision to accept His forgiveness.
Jesus’ sacrifice justifies and sanctifies us when we put our lives in His hand. Justification is the act through the merits of Christ that makes us free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration, gradually changes our nature through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness. We are being sanctified as we grow in grace and knowledge. Holy means to be set apart, perfect, and pure. This makes us saints, or holy ones.
We access this grace through faith. Faith is the belief that the doctrines stated in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them. We have to have faith to accept God’s love.
Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to changing ourselves through obedience so that we no longer do the wrong things.
This change is regeneration. Regeneration is the change in us that God brings about when we go from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive. Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
We have to consciously choose to admit our sins, believe on Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer, confess God as our Sovereign Lord, and demonstrate that through how we live our lives. This has to happen before death occurs. Once we are dead, our spiritual condition isn’t changing.
I loved what Parker had to say. He wrote, “Denominationalism is to be ranked with things which are temporal. What is the quantity which is set in direct opposition as being permanent, yea, everlasting? Its name is Worship — religious homage, religious loyalty, praise of God, and consecration to His service. Denominationalism, like all our little systems, has its day; it serves a most useful purpose. But worship endures.”
All of our different divisions will one day go away. Only one will remain — have we ABCDed or not? If we don’t believe Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins, we are going to be a goat on the left.
Did you catch that? We are going to spend eternity worshiping.
Making the Connections
We have to remember who is writing this. Paul had a lot of hardships in his life. Read 2 Corinthians 11:16-33 sometime. We would think his experiences would make him a very black and white type of person. It is one way or the other.
But Paul was totally convinced there are seen and unseen elements around us. He knew without a shadow of a doubt what is temporary and what will be eternal.
We can’t see God. We can’t see Jesus. We can’t see the Holy Spirit. We can’t see the angels. We can’t see those who have passed on.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t real.
There were a couple of sermons on habit of mind. Habit of mind is having “… a disposition toward behaving intelligently when confronted with problems …”
Resource
Oh, yeah. Disciples are to have a temperamental makeup where we act based on the knowledge we have about our Sovereign God. That means we look at seen/unseen and temporary/eternal.
Looking at things through the lens of eternity enriches things. We discern what is of most value.
Making the Connections to Self-Discipline
Yes, we have to look at seen/unseen and temporary/eternal and discern what God is telling us. That means we will need to be communicating with Him to hear His answer.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
How Do We Apply This?
- We are not to focus on things of this world. We are to make it a habit of mind to focus on God’s spirit world.
- We are not to focus on the uncertainty of this world. We are to focus on the never-changing God.
- We are to not get buried under the weight of a trial. We are to look to our God as He rescues us.
Resources
Father. We look to You. We want to lesson the grip that this world has on us and focus totally on You. There are many things we won’t understand until You call us home. Help us to understand what we need to and to accept what we cannot understand. Amen.
What do you think?
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