“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,” (Eph 1:18)

Man and woman are Created in the image and likeness of God.

“Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Gen 1:26-27, NASB)

 The Hebrew word translated as image is the word Tzelem, which is a reflection or a shadow of the original. The word “likeness” actually derives from the word “dam” which means blood and is the root of the name Adam, which implies a blood connection. Interestingly the word for ground or earth is adamah, which also contains the root for dam or blood. From all of this we see that man and woman are made to look like God and to contain His blood essence.

The reason I diving into these deep waters is that in order toe recover our true nature we need a clear image of who we are before this world corrupted our being. How do we know we are corrupted? Paul tells us:

 “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only that, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our body.” (Rom 8:18-23, NASB)

 Part of the corruption that needs healing is our freedom from the impact of a fallen system. While it will certainly be fully manifested with new bodies in the resurrection, we also can by faith begin to get glimpses of that reality in this time. How do I know that? Because Paul specifically prayed:

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,” (Eph 1:18)

 There is a realm of seeing that is of the original image and likeness that we were created for. We have our natural vision which is corrupted by this world and then our spiritual eyes which can be enlightened by Yeshua.

 Natural eyes are influenced by lust. Yeshua said:

 ““You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. “Now if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” (Mat 5:27-29, NASB)

You might think from this that He is speaking only to men but that would make no sense since women also look with lust. It may not be the same way men look with lust, I don’t know but even how women see themselves is influenced by lust. John tells us:

“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” (1Jn 2:16, NASB)

 And in the very next verse:

 “The world is passing away and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God continues to live forever.” (1Jn 2:17, NASB)

 Again this points to another way of seeing that generates eternal life and has an impact, I believe on how we live now.

 Let’s begin by looking at seeing that is by faith: Yeshua spoke about this:

 ““For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”” (Jhn 6:40, NASB)

 Now, clearly we don’t all “see the Son” with our natural eyes. Yet we will all the raised on the last day. This tells me that there is a seeing by faith that is transformational. Also, this means “seeing” is different in the Spirit than it is in the natural.

Even natural seeing is context driven. By this I mean that our seeing is programmed to complete a picture. Our natural mind needs continuity and our seeing is part of that process. We see what we need to see. Here’s a quote from a scientific journal explaining the process:

Contextual information is essential for visual perception

What we see is not only based on the signals that our eyes send to our brain, but is influenced strongly by the context the visual stimulus is presented in, on our previous knowledge, and expectations.

We see “in the natural” based on what we expect to see. If this is true for natural seeing then what would be true for spiritual seeing??

In describing the parable of the sower He tells us:

“And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but for those who are outside, everything comes in parables, so that WHILE SEEING THEY MAY SEE, AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR, AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND IT WOULD BE FORGIVEN THEM.” And He *said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables?” (Mrk 4:11-13, NASB)

 Yeshua is tying “seeing” with repentance and forgiveness. This tells us that our ability to “see” in the Spirit is connected to the condition of our heart. Remember the parable of the sower is about 4 conditions of heart, the last of which brings about the quality of the kingdom which is exponential growth and multiplication which we see made manifest in the miracles of the loaves and fishes.

In those examples, natural seeing sees limitation and spiritual seeing sees abundance and massive exponential multiplication.

So somehow our heart condition activates exponential realities that natural seeing is incapable of. This is at least in part the condition of spiritual seeing, massive multiplication, 30-60-100-fold.

This is the power of spiritually seeing. Being born again opens this up. We need to continue to pursue more revelation, more light and more of His multiplication. 

Activation: Ask the Lord to open up the eyes of your heart that you might know more of the hope of His calling the inheritance that He has for you!