The Scandal of Seeing

Today I want to talk about the scandal of seeing.
In this week's reading,
Jesus draws a connection 
between seeing him as the one who is revealing the Father,
and seeing him as the bread of life.
And most important of all,
He connects eating the bread 
seeing him
and receiving eternal life.
You cannot receive eternal life
unless you see correctly.
Seeing correctly,
and eternal life
are related.

We are finite beings who live in a fallen world.
We die,
and we are surrounded by death.
Jesus
came to bring life
and give us fullness of life.

Some of you may remember the story I shared
about a man who had been living with a large amount of post traumatic stress.
He had prematurely aged, and his hair was white.
As I prayed for him,
the hair in his eyebrows began to go back to dark.
His hair turned color right in front of my eyes.
And as this was happening,
I felt my mind and my eyes struggle with what was happening.
In my "rational" mind,
this doesn't happen.
Our sense of sight is tuned to this fallen world,
rather than the way things are in heaven.
And because of this,
many people miss the day of their visitation.

Last week I shared
that although it seemed like the 
men in the synagogue
in Capernaum
arguing with Jesus were not in agreement with him
they were actually all on the same page.
They were tracking with him.
They thought he was the Messiah.
And then,
at the end of the reading,
Jesus states clearly,
I am the bread of Life.
He who eats of this bread shall live forever.
And they say,
Lord, give us this bread always.
They get it.

And then,
something shifts.

This moment is like 
the moment in Nazareth
where it says everyone was in agreement with what he was teaching.
And then
a voice in the back of the crowd 
says 
"Isn't this Joseph's son?"
They had seen a revelation,
they were recognizing the day of visitation,
but someone corrected them
so that they only saw the earthly perspective.

This is like the proverbial crabs in the bucket,
who pull any crab trying to escape
back into the bucket.
That voice stopped the revelation.
And because of this,
they lost their faith,
Jesus could do very few miracles,
and in the end they tried to kill him.

I have seen this so many times 
when God begins to move.
People who think they are smart
completely miss it
because they are using their human senses to see.

Jesus keeps coming back to seeing here.
He connects seeing him
seeing the Father
and seeing him in the bread.

Jesus tells us
that only He has seen the Father.
And because only He has seen the Father,
the Father has sent him to show us the Father.
We need to see.
The one we need to see is Jesus.

And this causes a scandal among the men in the synagogue.
They begin to argue
because Jesus is no longer discussing truth with them.
He is claiming he is God
and this not only changes the argument,
it redefines the entire conversation.
And they just can't believe this person,
who is the son of people they know,
can be God.
And from an earthly perspective
this is crazy talk.

So Jesus pushes it further,
he quotes Isaiah 54:13:
All your sons will be taught by the LORD.
And those who are taught are the ones the Father has drawn to himself.

God is doing in Jesus 
what God did with Moses and the burning bush.
Moses saw a bush that was burning,
but the bush was not being consumed.
And he drew close to this thing.
It was all about seeing.
It was all about recognizing that something
is different.
God is in this thing.
And those who are drawn are being called by the Father.
And those who draw near
hear the voice.
God is in this thing.
And those who see are then brought in to see more.
And Jesus tells us here,
that your eternal life is dependant on you seeing properly.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning once said:
Earth is crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees
Takes off his shoes –
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.

Over the years
I have seen many, many people miss what God was doing,
because they chose not to see.
There was a song from the Jesus movement that had this line:
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

You will miss your moment of visitation 
when you trust your physical senses,
what you think you know,
the way things are,
and conventional wisdom.
And the folks in Nazareth missed their day.
And these folks here in Capernaum are starting to miss it.
And I am afraid a lot of Christians miss it all the time.

I traveled doing revival meetings for many years.
Through that I saw a lot of stuff.
I learned a lot.
One time in Aruba 
we did meetings in a church that had never had a move of the Holy Spirit.
We were doing a tour across Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao that was ending
with a big Bible conference. 
And every place we went, God moved powerfully.
Lives were being changed all over.
And during this meeting in Aruba,
the room was electric.
The Lord was moving,
and all the people were right on edge.
If we had given the invitation,
everyone would have come forward.
The director of our ministry, 
expecting to see a miracle,
handed the meeting over to the pastor.
And the pastor
began to give announcements about a special cake and coffee time after the meeting.
Through the whole meeting
he was thinking about cake,
and he didn't see
what God was doing.
He was just going about his business 
as a fat, happy conventional pastor.
He missed the day of visitation.
Bummer.

Here Jesus is saying,
I am the bread.
I am the one who is going to give you eternal life.
I have seen the Father,
and no one can come to him unless they come to me.
If you have seen me
you have seen the Father.
I am the bread of life,
and the bread of life is my flesh.
Whoa.
Do you see?

Do not miss your day of visitation.
This is the scandal.
It never looks like what you think it will.

On Thursday we celebrate eighteen years.
God has done a lot of miracles,
and I am really amazed 
and in awe of the goodness of God.
Over all this time,
we have seen people come and go,
and a handful of times I have had to put boundaries 
between our house and a person.
It is a real drag.
It's not what I signed up for.
It's no fun showing someone the door.

Usually,
the person just doesn't see what God is doing.
We are called to raise up an army of artists.
To some that alone is offensive.
Belonging House is a community of strategic disciples
called to be God's special forces.
God wants to raise up artists who can fight 
in these times of war.
These days are evil.
The weapons of our warfare 
are not carnal.
They are the weapons of seeing.
We are called to help conventional people see the unseen.
And this is serious spiritual war.
Satan hates what we do.

When I show someone the door,
it's usually because a Christian is partnering with witchcraft.
Some would call this the Jezebel spirit.
It seems to be a fairly regular cycle.
These aren't witches.
These are immature, selfish Christians misusing their authority
to hurt me,
and stop what God is doing,
because they want their own way.
I see it over and over again.
If they can't dominate they will destroy.
It's a real drag.

This is why we have to align our hearts with the word of God.
We have to forgive and not succumb to anger.
Unforgiveness will open you right up to deception.
It is easy to get deceived,
and these are extremely dangerous times.
Deception is at a level I have never seen before.

The folks who come into our house
who missed what happened
thought I was starting a little church to make them happy.
They aren't artists,
and they usually give me lots of trouble.
Eventually,
the patience and good grace I extend to people,
makes them think I am a bit dumb,
and they can cross the line and push me around.
And then they think they can play the power games 
that they played in the little
churches that they left.
They have no fear of God,
and are not afraid of touching the anointing.

One hard lesson I have learned,
is to honor the call and the anointing on people
who I may not agree with.
I have seen a lot of leaders
up close and in person.
Everyone has flaws.
We are human beings.
God uses broken people
because that is all he has to work with.
And I have learned, the hard way,
not to judge,
and I have had to choose to make a conscious decision
to honor the person God has chosen,
regardless of what my eyes see.
David saw the worst of Saul,
but he understood this was the man God chose,
and it was not his job to take him out.
It is about choosing to see what God sees.
I don't want to miss my day of visitation.

If God has chosen and called someone
there is something there that is holy.
I cannot touch holy things.

It's been mystifying over the years
to have people who have heard the story of how we started,
seen the miracles,
read my books,
and listened to my teaching,
who think that it would be okay to oppose me,
touch the glory,
and mess with the anointing.

And it's not about me.
They probably oppose every leader they meet.

They thought that their disfunctional
church behavior
was benign,
when in every case
they opened themselves up to the demonic.
And it has cost us money, 
and set our work back
again and again.
When you make it all about you,
you become a channel for witchcraft.
There are folks who think the power they have accessed
is the Holy Spirit.

And in every case,
they thought their opposition to me
was doing the will of God.
Not one of them has come to a good end.

Here is a rule of thumb:
if you think it is your business to pray against a person
to change them,
you are out of alignment.
God didn't give you sovereignty over other people,
and you need to stop.
Any time you try to control or
manipulate someone,
you are trying to dominate,
and that's power,
and that's witchcraft.
Stop it.

This week I had to break two curses 
put on our ministry
by Christians.
One of these people summoned a demon to stop me.
That's not funny.
And I can't tolerate this in our community,
so I had to put a hard boundary between us.
Gossip,
slander,
and idle chatter will get you into serious trouble.
It is a demonic spirit of prophecy.

So Friday morning I broke these two curses.
I demanded I forgive and release.
Within an hour 
someone sent us £6000 for an office in Chelsea,
a new iPhone,
and a new Macbook Pro.

When you do not see things accurately,
you are going to miss the day of visitation.
And you are going to miss the blessing God has for you.
Because God is going to oppose you.
God opposes the proud.

I've had to make a decision that if someone new 
comes to our community
over the age of thirty
who is not an artist,
directly connected to the arts through family or career,
or called to support the arts in a real way,
I am going to have to send them away.
You behave differently in a time of war
than you do in a time of peace.

These are dangerous times.
We need to be looking at Jesus,
and know what we are looking at.
We can't judge with our human judgement.
The word for this in Greek is "soulish" or "carnal."
You can't rely on your own human wisdom 
in a time of deception and psychological warfare.
This is why the media is so dangerous.
It will not give you insight or help you pray.
You have to align with the word of God.
We have to judge with our spiritual eyes.

The only tuning for this sense is Jesus.
He is the image of the Invisible God.
He is the one who has seen the Father.
And if you have seen him
you have seen the Father.
And the more you look at Jesus
the more you become like him.

And this comes back to this teaching on the bread of life.
Next week 
Jesus is going to start talking about eating his flesh.
And in the Greek it is clear,
he is not talking about a metaphor.
He is talking about chewing and swallowing.

And in this context,
Jesus is telling them,
if you look at the bread
and you just see bread
you are missing what's happening here.
Yes,
it is bread and wine.
But for those who have eyes to see,
it is my body and my blood.
Every Sunday we get to have a moment of visitation.
Every Sunday we get to have a revival
and a move of God.
Every Sunday we get to experience a miracle.
This is the point.
Let the one who has eyes see.
This is the scandal of seeing.