The Fight to See
Sep 2 2022 - Eric Buresh
I want to pass along the single best piece of advice I have received to this point in my life. At the time when this advice landed on me as a heavy and well-struck blow, it would be generous to say that my faith was a smoldering wick (Isaiah 42:3). I’m not totally sure there was any spark of faith at all. This advice came as I was seriously contemplating leaving Christ and the church. Here was the advice (as close as I can recall), “Eric, do one thing for me, read your Bible one more time, but read it for the sole purpose of seeing and falling in love with the main character.”
This piece of advice made me livid. Why was I mad? In one sentence, a friend had peeled back many layers of my garbage. At that point, I did not really have much, if any, love for God. I did not find Jesus very beautiful. I did not find the cross very glorious. I did not find His grace and mercy amazing. My affections were deadened. I didn’t see Christ as a treasure.
This was bad enough, but there were more layers to my garbage. I had been reading the Bible out of a sense of duty, obligation, and to earn my right standing with God. I had fallen into legalism (or religion as Jesus called it). I read the Bible to earn credit, to earn grace, indeed, to earn my salvation. I knew my heart and this gentle advice cut me.
I also knew that I had been reading my Bible so that I could impress people. So that people would look to me for help and answers. The Bible had become a manipulative tool to enhance my own self-importance. These are hard words to write, because the heart attitudes are so ugly to me now, but they are also joyous words to write because I am so amazed at God’s mercy and grace and His work in my life, I am so thankful to Jesus for buying my forgiveness with His blood, and I cry for joy when I think about how the Holy Spirit renewed my mind and opened my eyes anew.
Looking back, I wandered from God, in part, because I did not really appreciate the degree to which my heart was a battle ground. I was naïve, careless, and even reckless with my faith, not realizing there is an ongoing and intense fight over our ability to clearly see Jesus as beautiful, glorious, and majestic, i.e., to love the main character. I want to show you a few versus that helped me understand the fight for my heart and that explain why my friend’s advice was so perfect and important.
Let’s start with Romans 12:2 – “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . .” Notice the passive voice. We are not doing the transforming, we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds. The transformation and renewal is God’s work in us, making our minds new. See also Ephesians 4:23-24 – “and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
The thing I did not understand was how this transformation and renewing by God really worked? 2 Corinthians 3:18 gives us some really important details: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Meditate on this verse – it’s worth it. Breaking it down, (1) we are being transformed into the image of Jesus from one degree to the next, (2) by beholding (i.e., seeing and perceiving), (3) the glory (i.e., the beauty and majesty and infinite perfections) of Jesus. We are transformed when, by the work of the Spirit through the revealed and faithful Word, we see Jesus as delightfully glorious.
This fight to see and delight in Jesus is not a one-sided fight. Satan is actively working against our seeing. 2 Corinthians 4:4 (ESV) tells us that “[t]he god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” Often, we also are working against our own ability to see: “having [our] understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in [us[, because of the blindness of [our] heart.” Ephesians 4:18.
So, on the one hand, both Satan and the blindness of our own nature are working against our ability to see Christ as glorious and beautiful. Thankfully, God is on the other side of this fight: “It is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:4. Our part is to look and to pray for eyes to see. So, here is my best advice to you, read the Word with the purpose of seeing and falling in love with Jesus. And then, as David did, pray “open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your Word. Psalm 119:18.