We continue our study of Ephesians and the purpose of the church with Chapter 1:18:
Did you ever consider that your heart has eyes? Have the eyes of your heart been opened yet? If we walk in the faith to which we are called, what we see with the eyes of our heart will be more real to us than what we see with our natural eyes. The eyes of the heart are the eyes of the Spirit that can enable us to see farther and more clearly than any natural eyes ever could.
Paul prayed for the opening of the spiritual eyes of the Ephesians so that they could know the hope of the Lord’s calling, not theirs, and also know the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, not just the glory of their inheritance.
Many years ago the Lord spoke to me and said that a great deception had gone out over His people. This deception was the overemphasis on who we are in Christ, in place of who He is in us. A key word to understanding this deception is "overemphasis." We do need to know who we are called to be in Christ, but true faith is not built up by seeing who we are, but by seeing who He is. True vision is seeing Him, who He is, and where He now sits. We will never be changed into His glory by seeing who we are, but only by seeing Him.
There is without question a high calling in Christ. When Paul was writing the book of Philippians near the end of his life, he stated that he did not think he had yet attained. He obviously was not talking about salvation, as he was saved on the day that he believed. What he was talking about was the high calling. The Scriptures are clear that there are levels of rewards and levels of authority that will be given in heaven. These are determined by our obedience and faith in this life. Some will be given one city, some five, some ten, etc. There are some appointed who will sit on His right hand and left. We see in Revelation 7 the great company that stands before the throne, but the overcomers in the Laodicean church are promised to sit with Him on His throne. Even conservative evangelical leaders have told me they thought the source of some of the greatest weaknesses in the Western church today is the inability to understand this. What we do here will count for eternity! However, the way we attain this high calling is not by seeking our own rewards, but rather becoming devoted to seeing the Lord receive the reward of His inheritance.
If Paul the apostle could not know in this life what he had attained to in relation to the high calling, I think it is questionable that any of us could. If Paul did not think that he had yet attained, where does that leave us? It leaves us where it left him, pressing on! It is abundantly clear in Scripture that enduring to the end is crucial. Like runners in track meets are taught to run beyond the finish line so they won’t slow down or stumble at the end of the race, we must continue pressing on. How many great men and women of God have stumbled near the end of their lives?
The mark that we have been given to run to, our finish line, is nothing less than Christlikeness. We are called to be like Him and do the works that He did. Who on this earth has yet attained to that? Those I have met who claimed to be the "sons of God" have appeared to be some of the most foolish of all, like little children who put on Superman costumes and began thinking they were Superman.
When I inquired of the Lord many years ago about how we could know on this earth if we had attained to this high calling, He assured me that we could not know on this earth. He said to attain the high calling, we had to be so consumed with seeing Jesus glorified that we would not even care enough about what we had personally attained to even be concerned about it. That is why the opening of the eyes of our heart has to do with seeing His glory and His inheritance, not our own.
The way for us to attain the great inheritance is not to be that concerned about it, but to be completely devoted to seeing our Lord receive the reward of His sacrifice. When we look at what He did for us, leaving all of the glory that He had to come to earth, living such an impoverished life as a man, and then to be so cruelly executed by the very ones He came to save, what could any of us ever do in comparison?
I acknowledge that there is obviously a high calling. I also believe that those who are overly focused on it have lost their way, and lost the true vision. We can only attain by seeing Him, not ourselves. Let us pray with Paul that the eyes of our heart will be opened to see Him, His calling, and His inheritance. Only then will we see everything else clearly.
