What You See Is What You Get: Part 2
By Pastor Mitch Horton | February 2003 | Posted in • Archives | (0) Comments
In last month’s newsletter, we saw that God has made us to be dreamers. We were created to rule and reign under God’s direction. He created us with ambition burning within us. Though the fall of man caused that ambition to be twisted into self-aggrandizement, through the new birth we can fulfill His purposes in our lives with a holy ambition born from above!
God has made us in such a way that what you see is what you get! That is, what you see yourself doing is what you will become! In last month’s issue, we saw that God gave Abraham, Joseph, and Moses a dream for their future, and regardless of overwhelming obstacles, they obtained what God had planned for their lives. They kept the goal of God’s purpose ever before their eyes!
God has made us in such a way that whatever we continually meditate on can actually become a reality in our lives. Proverbs 23:7 reads, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Jesus mentioned this principle when discussing the importance of faith in receiving from Him. Speaking to the Centurion who had a sick servant, He said, “.and as you have believed, so let it be done for you”(Matthew 8:13). Jesus said to two blind men who were healed, “According to your faith let it be to you”(Matthew 9:29). To the parents of a sick child, He said, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes”(Mark 9:23).
We need to remember that God does not see our inabilities and weaknesses. He only sees the potential that He placed within us! He sees the end result of our lives from the beginning! He wants us to cooperate with Him and believe that He can bring to pass in our lives what looks impossible to us!
Jesus looked past Peter’s failures before they even happened when He stated to him, “But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen the brethren”(Luke 22:32). And we must likewise look past our present circumstances.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE WHERE YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU HAVE IN LIFE, YOU MUST CHANGE WHAT YOU SEE! God said to the prophet Habakkuk, “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry”(Habakkuk 2:2-3).
We need to write down the plans God gives us and keep them before our eyes. To allow change to come, we must be willing to look beyond our present insecurities and and keep our focus on the plans we believe that God has for us. As we keep our focus on our goal, it slowly becomes reality.
Remember that Jesus said, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness”(Matthew 6:22-23). In the sense of this scripture, it is true that what you see is what you get! Someone has said, “What gains and sustains our attention will ultimately control our lives.”
Hebrews 12:2 tells us that we are to be “.looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” The Greek word for looking in this verse actually means to turn the eyes from other things and fix them on something or to turn the mind specifically toward a certain thing. It means to look away from everything else and to purposely gaze at an object!
If we are to fulfill the purpose of God for our lives, we must look away from the distractions around us. We must look away from our lack, our weakness, our inability, our age, our failures, and our past. We must look away from our own view of ourselves and allow the Lord to show us what He has in store for our lives, regardless of how impossible it may seem. We must look away from the opinions of others and we must fix our gaze on what the Lord has shown us for our future! What we continually see is what will become a reality in our lives.
Abraham had to look beyond his age and the age of Sarah his wife; beyond his mistake of having a child by Hagar his handmaid; and had to focus on the promise of God that he would have a child with his wife in their old age!
Joseph had to look away from the offence of his brothers who sold him as a slave; away from the false accusations of a deceitful woman; beyond the walls of a prison, and keep his gaze on the dream that he had as a teenager of being a ruler.
Moses had to look away from his past in Pharaoh’s court; away from his midlife failure when he killed an Egyptian and hid him in the sand; and beyond his age of eighty, when God appeared to him in the burning bush and called him to deliver the Israelites from Egypt.
When God placed the yearning to pastor within me as a boy of 18, I had to look beyond my youth and inexperience; beyond my inferiority and fear of people; beyond the opinions of my family and peers; and I had to make a decision to look only at the desire that I knew that God had placed within my spirit. As I kept His plan for me before my eyes, He eventually brought the desire to pass.
Regardless of where you are in life right now, I encourage you to pursue the passion that God has placed within you. He has a purpose for you to fulfill. As you keep your focus off of your past, your present, your strengths, your weaknesses, the opinions of friends and relatives, and keep it on Jesus and His plan that you sense within you, you’ll eventually realize the fulfillment of your dreams. Because WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET. Next month, we’ll discuss how to find the plan of God for your life.
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