A Nugget from New Life Network
(excerpts from Dr. Larry Ollison)
Scripture for the Day (September 1, 2016)
While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians4:18).
This world was created temporal by the Word of God as a place for man to exist and have dominion forever. Our physical world is considered temporary by God, but He considers the unseen world of the spirit as eternal. He is the Creator who, by His Word, spoke everything we see into existence. If man could travel at the speed of light, which is 186,282 miles per second, or 670,616,629 miles per hour, it would take billions of years to travel to the galaxies we now see with telescopes in space and observatories. Truly the vastness of the creation we can see is beyond our imagination, but it pales in comparison to what we can’t see.
While the Scriptures clearly tell us that God created everything both visible and invisible (Colossians 1:16), we are also instructed in the Scriptures to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). In other words, the things of the Spirit that are unseen are more reliable (real) and true than what you see and sense with your natural senses. One of the great purposes of the Holy Spirit for mankind is to draw, guide, reveal, and seal us so that we can be transformed and delivered from darkness into the kingdom of light, which is spiritual and eternal.
When Paul was writing to the Corinthians, he made a statement that is often quoted. He said, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). While this is an eloquent, much quoted phrase, Paul is actually revealing a deep truth of the spirit realm. He is saying that your eyes cannot see and your ears cannot hear and your heart cannot imagine the things of the spirit realm. But he goes on to say God has miraculously revealed them to those who are believers through His Spirit and it is the Spirit who searches the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:10). He strongly implies that without the Spirit, the senses of man and the heart of man would never be able to detect these things.
Because the deep things of God that are unseen to man in the spirit world are only revealed by the Holy Spirit, the natural world on this earth is confused and does not understand when the things of the Spirit are explained to them in a natural, intellectual way. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he told them the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God because they are foolishness to him; there is no way that they can know the things of the Spirit, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).
It is the Spirit of God that brings revelation and without the Spirit, there is no revelation of the spirit world. That is why it is so important for you to be baptized in the Spirit. That experience is like a door being opened to the Spirit realm. It makes you more sensitive to the invisible and more attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. (Matthew 3:11, NIV)
