The Battle for our Gaze - Psalm 27:4
Intro: We were made to look into, gaze upon & consider the beauty of the Lord. We are meant to join David in saying… [READ TEXT]
Think of this: We are made in God’s image. We are made to be in relationship with the uncreated God, we are the only beings that God created that can commune with Him.
I. Jesus said that the eye is the lamp to the body - Matthew 6:21-23
A. If the eye is good, the whole body is good
1. What we open our eyes to is what we open our souls to!
2. This is the “beholding / becoming principle of scripture
a. We become what we behold
B. What are we supposed to be focusing on?
1. READ: 2 Corinthians 3:18
NOTE: If our eyes behold the things of God, we’ll be transformed into godly people with a growing hunger for God. If we behold evil and perverse things, our souls will be filled with those perversions and will NEVER be satisfied. This is why people that pursue perversion must continue to find darker levels of perversion.
C. There is an intense battle for our eyes, our attention & our
affections.
1. We need to wake up to what is happening and fight it!
2. Ps 13:3, “Enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death”
II. The Power of Focus
A. READ: Ephesians 1:17-18
1. …that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened.
B. Where is our gaze focused?
1. What are we beholding?
2. What are we becoming?
NOTE: It is time for us to exchange stale, emotionless theories about God for the authentic experience of God.
C. David prayed two prayers about where he was gazing…
1. Psalm 119:18 “Open my eyes that I may see wondrous
things from Your law”
2. Psalm 119:37 “Turn away my eyes from looking at
worthless things and revive me in Your way.”
NOTE: In essence, David was saying, “Remove even the things that look harmless or even good to make more room for You in my soul.”
D. What takes up room in your soul?
1. Do we allow space that could be filled with the knowledge of God to be occupied by lesser things?
NOTE: We often congratulate ourselves that we did not expose ourselves to evil things, without realizing that the “good” things we occupied ourselves with kept us from our time with God.
Concl.: The church often approaches spiritual bondage with a one-sided plan of attack: Pray for them and break off spiritual oppression. We need to include the other half of the equation: We must also connect the people that are freed from bondage with the reason they were created: to gaze on the beauty of God and to contemplate the eternal realm where the majesty of God saturates everything.
Many people think that their God-focused desires are too large and they feel guilty about dwelling on them. In reality, they are not large enough. We can’t just stop with cutting off the fruit of sin, we need to replace it with gazing on the beauty realm of God and being captivated by His glory.
The voice of the Lord is calling out to a Samuel generation living in the midst of an Eli generation. The eyes of those in the Eli generation are so dim that they cannot see. God is scanning the earth for seers, those that will gaze on the beauty of God and soar in the realm of the Spirit to feast their eyes and hearts on God as they begin to perceive and become enthralled by what He is doing in the earth.
