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Can true freedom be found within the boundaries of divine guidance? We explore this profound question through the lens of biblical teachings and personal anecdotal insights, reflecting on the transformative power of spiritual vision and personal divine guidance. The episode takes you on a journey of understanding how God customizes His guidance for each individual, as illustrated in the interactions between Jesus, Peter, and John. We challenge the common misconception of grace as merely an excuse for sin, positing instead that it’s a formidable source of strength to overcome it, using lessons from Genesis to illuminate this truth.

Next, we navigate the delicate balance between freedom and responsibility in the Christian faith. True freedom is often misunderstood; it is not the indulgence of every whim but lies in the obedience to God’s commands. Through the foundational story of Adam and Eve, we underscore the need to prioritize God’s wisdom over unfamiliar voices, understanding that only He defines what is good and evil. This perspective invites us to live a life that harmoniously aligns with faith, where choices are made with an ear tuned to divine guidance rather than societal noise.

Finally, we consider the dangers of ignoring God’s voice in favor of societal influences, which can lead to crises of identity and dissatisfaction. By drawing lessons from biblical figures like King David and Joseph, we examine how they navigated adversity with integrity and patience, choosing divine perspective over human retribution. Their stories remind us of the power of maintaining a “good eye,” ensuring our vision remains aligned with light and truth. As we wrap up, I invite you to stay connected and engage with our content online, promising more discussions that challenge and inspire.

Where to dive in:

(0:00:00) – Grace (5 Minutes)

This chapter focuses on the importance of making choices based on personal divine guidance rather than mimicking others. Reflecting on biblical teachings, I discuss how God tailors His guidance to each individual’s purpose, as seen in the exchange between Jesus, Peter, and John. We explore the concept of spiritual eyesight, emphasizing the need to view our lives and relationships through God’s perspective rather than our own. I highlight how misinterpreting grace has hindered spiritual growth, stressing that grace is meant to empower us to avoid sin, not to excuse it. By examining Genesis chapter 3, we address how seeing the world properly is crucial for acting righteously amidst the challenges we face in society, whether in personal, professional, or broader contexts.

(0:04:59) – Understanding Freedom and Responsibility in Grace (8 Minutes)

This chapter explores the concept of freedom within the Christian faith, emphasizing that while we have the freedom to make choices, true freedom lies in obedience to God’s commands. We discuss how freedom should not be misconstrued as permission to do anything we desire, but rather as the ability to choose to follow God’s guidance. Using the biblical story of Adam and Eve, we highlight how God provided everything needed in the Garden of Eden but set boundaries to demonstrate the importance of relying on His wisdom. The significance of understanding that God alone determines what is good and evil is emphasized, reinforcing the need for reliance on His authority. We also reflect on the idea that when God questions Adam about who told him he was naked, it underscores the importance of prioritizing God’s voice over any other influences. Through this, we aim to understand the balance between freedom and responsibility in living a life of faith.

(0:12:36) – Cost of False Voices (16 Minutes)

This chapter explores the profound impact of prioritizing God’s perspective over societal influences and personal feelings. We examine how self-loathing and identity crises arise from valuing others’ opinions and striving to be like them, leading to envy and dissatisfaction. The discussion highlights the danger of idolizing external voices, such as influencers and media, over God’s voice. Reflecting on the biblical story of Adam and Eve, we consider the consequences of trusting unfamiliar voices and placing personal judgment above divine wisdom. This narrative serves as a cautionary tale about the importance of maintaining a pure, unbroken relationship with God, emphasizing the need to listen to God’s guidance to avoid fear and separation from His love.

(0:28:47) – Through God’s Lens (12 Minutes)

This chapter explores the theme of perception and judgment, particularly how our human perspective is often flawed due to pride and a limited understanding of good and evil. We discuss the biblical story of Adam and Eve, emphasizing how their choice to eat from the tree of knowledge led to a distorted view of themselves and others. The narrative highlights the importance of seeing through God’s eyes, rather than our own, to avoid misconceptions and judgments tainted by personal biases. By acknowledging our sin nature and seeking divine guidance, we can correct our vision and find true freedom and covering in God’s love and grace. Through the process of confession and divine correction, we can move beyond the inadequate coverings we create for ourselves and embrace the completeness that comes from God’s provision.

(0:40:26) – Seeing Through God’s Eyes (15 Minutes)

This chapter explores the complex nature of dealing with evil and the importance of responding with goodness rather than retaliating in kind. By examining biblical figures such as King David and Joseph, we learn valuable lessons about integrity, patience, and trusting God’s timing and judgment. Despite facing persecution and betrayal, both David and Joseph chose to see their adversaries through a lens of divine purpose rather than revenge, ultimately leading to redemption and reconciliation. The chapter emphasizes the significance of maintaining a “good eye,” as described in Matthew, which keeps one’s perspective aligned with light and truth. Furthermore, it reflects on the story of Isaac, Jacob, and Esau, highlighting the potential for deception when one’s spiritual eyesight is impaired. Through these narratives, we are encouraged to confront challenges with love and allow God to guide our responses, ensuring our actions align with His will.

(0:55:40) – Connect With Jamie Luce Online (0 Minutes)

This chapter is a brief wrap-up of our session, where I encourage listeners to stay connected and updated with our latest content. I invite you to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to ensure you never miss a new episode. Additionally, I mention visiting my website, jamielucecom, and reaching out via email for further engagement. I express gratitude for your support and look forward to our next interaction.

About your host: Jaime Luce’s testimony has daunting personal mountains and treacherous financial valleys. She was trapped in day-to-day stress and couldn’t see a way forward. But how she started is not how she finished! And she wants you to know God has a plan for your life too, no matter how tough it seems. Today, Jaime has been married to the love of her life for almost three decades, owns two companies, and has become an author and podcaster. God’s way is always the blessed way!

Free chapter of Jaime’s new book: You Don’t Need Money, You Just Need God: https://jaimeluce.com/book/

Connect:

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Full Transcript

This transcript is auto-generated and not perfect. We hope it blesses you.

0:00:00 – Jaime Luce
How many of us make choices and partake in things and do things because somebody else does them and we think, well, it’s good for them, it looks good, must be good for me. What if God has said to them that’s okay at your life, this is what I have for your life, that’s good for you. And then he turns to another one and he says that’s not good for you, I don’t want you to have that. God does individually. Raise us up, train us up for our lives and our purpose. That’s why he said when Peter complained that God’s Jesus said to John that he’s not going to die the same kind of death that Peter is and Peter’s like. Why not? Wanting it to be equal, wanting it to be the same kind of death that Peter is and Peter’s like. Why not Wanting it to be equal, wanting it to be the same? And Jesus’s response to him was what is it to you? You obey me, you follow me, you don’t worry about the other person, you don’t allow my relationship with the other person to determine my relationship with you. And we do this. We allow this all the time.

Welcome to the Jamie Lewis Podcast. Thank you for taking some time today. In the Word, we’re going to go kind of deep today in a subject that touches on grace. It touches on spiritual eyesight. It’s really about spiritual eyesight, but I think I’ve got some things to uncover today that you may not have seen in this scripture passage before and if you have great, this will be review for you. But this is something that affects all of us every day. To live the spiritual life, seeing the world, our circumstances ourselves, one another, as brothers and sisters in Christ, even our family members, those close to us, seeing this world, seeing each other through God’s lens and not our own. That can be a tough assignment but it’s imperative because if we can’t do that, I’m going to show you how detrimental that is and why. That is why this needs to be. Whether it’s obvious offense or obvious evil in the world, you know we’re looking around at the world today and everything that we’re dealing with, just as people living our lives, whether that be at work or the government and the upcoming elections, or whether that be through circumstances in school and business. Things are difficult everywhere and if we don’t see things properly, we won’t act properly, and I’ll give you several examples of that today in Scripture. But I want us to take.

Our main text is in Genesis, chapter 3. And this is the chapter that talks about the fall, and I’m not going to read the entire thing to you, but I do want to just start by saying in verse 7 of chapter 3, it says then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked. I’m just going to state that we like to talk about the grace of God and so many, for so many years, used the grace of God improperly. They used it as a way to give themselves permission to not go through a sanctification process. It almost erased the idea that God says I am holy and I expect you to be holy. And it interfered. Having a wrong understanding, a wrong definition of the word grace interfered with people growing and maturing in God. And I want to say this that the grace of God is given to keep us from. It is a power. To keep us from. It is not to give permission to.

And I’m not using that to say that we don’t have freedom. We absolutely have freedom, but our freedom cannot lead us, and I’ll show you this in just a second. You have to be careful, because freedom, if you look at the term freedom and you take that to mean I can do anything I want, whenever I want, however I want, then you have discounted that. You are serving Jesus Christ, who is your Lord, who commands you. You are the servant. The position you’re in is servant of Jesus Christ, so you take his commands. So freedom, yes, to live within the bounds of everything that he has provided for us and to grow and to multiply and use our gifts and talents for the Lord and to be all that he has called us to be. Freedom to do all of that, yes, without restraint. It’s wonderful and that is something that is not missing from the word grace that that, of course, is there, but freedom and understanding that in that freedom there are choices to be made. Freedom means I have choice. I can choose to love God and follow him, or I can choose to not follow him, to ignore his commands and live in the world. So grace is not permission. A gift of God is not permission to be permissive in everything that you want to do. It’s understanding that he has given you a great gift and there is responsibility in your decision making, and he has enabled you, with strength that you would not have on your own, to resist temptation and to not go where you shouldn’t go or do what you shouldn’t do. Resist temptation and to not go where you shouldn’t go or do what you shouldn’t do.

Genesis 3.11, just a few verses later, says and this is God speaking to Adam and Eve who told you that you were naked? Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? So we believe that God has given us a free will. He put them in the garden. They had the ability to choose God, to obey what he said. He had given them freedom. He from um you are free to eat of every tree in the garden, but do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So he, you know, gave them this enormous garden, provided every kind of fruit and herb and plant and every kind of thing that they would need to eat and live and be prosperous and healthy, and all of those things. Provided that for them. Put them in the middle and to prove choice, to prove your freedom, right smack in the middle of that garden is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Right smack in the middle of that garden is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God presented them with this beautiful garden and said you are free to eat anything here. You can have anything in this entire garden. It’s a huge garden, it’s all yours. Just don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Well, we have grace to live in freedom, except we cannot indulge in deciding what is good or what is evil.

We talked about this in the last podcast God alone decides what is good, podcast. God alone decides what is good, which means that I remain reliant on God to know what I should do or not do. Okay, this tree in the middle of the garden is God saying. I’m giving you freedom, you have the ability to choose. It’s all here. My goodness is here, all my provision is here, everything I have I’m. I’m commanding you not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I have one command, one command don’t eat from that tree, from that tree. And if I don’t eat of that tree, I am taking the position that God knows more than me, that he is God, that he’s a good father and that, if I follow his instructions, all of the goodness and everything he has provided is here for me and I can freely live in this. It means I rely on God to know what is good for me and what is not good for me. This tree is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So if he tells me don’t eat of that, and I obey and don’t eat of that, I’m saying that God determines what’s good and what’s not. He’s told me that’s not good, don’t eat that. Everything else is good. You can have everything else, just don’t have that. So I acknowledge he’s God. He remains in first position because I obey that command.

I understand that he is the one who determines and he is the one who commands and I am the one who follows. He keeps that first position. He’s God, he’s Lord over my life. I was created under him. I am not God. I understand he is above me. He is God, he is Lord, he is my father. This is why God said who told you? He’s asking Adam? Who told you that you were naked? Because only what God thinks matters. If God is in the God position, if God is in the authoritative position, if God is the God who decides everything, if he’s the one who created me, he’s the one who gave me my identity, he’s the one who has put me in this place, wherever my garden is, that he’s placed me. And if I understand that, god is the one who authors it all, he’s the first and the last. I mean, he’s God. He’s everything. Everything I have comes from him. Everything we are is him. Everything he created us to be is from him. He’s God.

So if God says, who told you? He’s asking whose opinion? Whose voice did you listen to? What have you heard? That you count this more important than me? Because they had hid. They hid in the garden when they heard his voice. This was at the confrontation. This was at the moment that he is speaking to them, and Adam explains why he was hiding. So God says who told you? Who did you allow to take my place? What voice have you listened to? That is above mine, that you would hide from me? And you would do, you would behave in this way. What has happened? Who told you? Because only what God thinks matters.

If we could understand this, if we could truly understand this, we wouldn’t have as big of an issue as we have with the self-loathing and identity crisis we have, where everyone is trying to be like somebody else. It’s this very thing that leads to envy, to wanting what somebody else has, to looking at other people and being jealous and not being satisfied. This very thing authors all these other sins. It’s a foundational understanding Only what God thinks matters. It doesn’t matter what people think. It doesn’t matter what people say. It doesn’t matter what the government says or what the government does. It doesn’t matter what people say. It doesn’t matter what the government says or what the government does. It doesn’t matter what your feelings say to you, your own feelings, it doesn’t.

If I listen to my feelings more than what God thinks of me or says, then I have to realize I am not putting God in God’s position. I’m putting me in God’s position. That what I think matters more, what I feel matters more. I am then in the God position. Shocking, but it’s true. If what God says is what matters and I am in disagreement with what God says, I have made myself out to be God. That’s a very humanistic way to think.

It’s a very to think that you know how many religions are out there that they think that we’re our. We think we’re our own little, our own gods. You know that we get to determine the fate of our life, that we hold the power of our life in our hands and when God says, I’m the one who gives you your next breath, I’m God. You’re not God. So grace that he gives us is the gift of God to come back to a free I mean, I’m sorry, not free a pre-fall position where there is no break in the relationship with God, there’s no separation from God. I am not in a position that I am trying to be over God or there’s a disruption in how we are, um, how our relationship looks.

We we went from walking in the cool of the day together every day to hiding and and not being where we’re supposed to be and listening to voices we shouldn’t listen to. That separation that came was birthed from choosing based off of what Eve had determined looked good. Now, of course, the enemy came to help that process and lie to Eve. But Eve had the choice to listen to the voice of the enemy, to a lie that was being told her. Who did she trust more? She was listening to the words. Think about this. She was listening to the words of the serpent, who she didn’t walk and talk with every day, who she didn’t know his voice. This was a new voice to her and she’s trusting this new outside voice over the voice of God. How many times do we do that? That we listen to complete strangers? You listen to complete strangers on your phones, People you don’t know. You trust what they’re saying.

These influencers quote unquote that we hold in high esteem. What ridiculous movie stars think People who don’t love God, don’t live for God, don’t have the relationship that you have with God and we allow those voices to influence us. I mean, then we have, we have to understand folks. We are listening to a voice that is not above God, that is far, far below God, and placing it in importance and in value to listen to high above God. So we have made false images. We are serving idols. It’s idol worship, and sometimes it’s our own. We allow our own feelings about something that we’re, that we’re facing, dealing with, going through how we feel about it, based off of all kinds of things. We allow that to take precedence over God’s thoughts and opinions. We don’t even ask him.

Sometimes Eve determined what she thought looked good, seemed good, and then she actually this is so important. She, her actions then were not. We are not an island unto ourselves. She then took that and gave those opinions and fed them to Adam, and Adam received her opinions over God’s, over what God said, and that’s why God held him responsible. God actually spoke this command to Adam. It was Adam who told Eve. God didn’t tell Eve directly, he told Adam, and Adam took Eve’s voice over God’s voice. Yeah, this looked pretty good. She didn’t die when she ate it, so maybe I can eat it. You know, who knows what he was thinking? And Adam, she caused Adam to say I heard, listen to this, I heard the sound of you in the garden.

What Eve gave to Adam caused Adam’s relationship with God to be in trouble. He followed suit and he said of God, the one who’s commanded him, the one who created him, the one who loved him, provided for him. He said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid. Up to this point, folks, they’d never seen even remotely close to anything that would make them afraid of God. There was no fear in God. Perfect love casts out all fear. There was no fear, and believing a lie, believing a voice above God’s, caused Adam to fear. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. So then this perpetuates itself. Not only was he afraid, now he has to hide himself, cover himself. You know, put the mask on, be something different, not allow you to see me, not allow intimacy. The relationship was cut off. God’s saying no one told you that you were naked.

They determined this by their own eyesight. That was now mingled with evil. Up until this point they had not eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They had no knowledge of evil. They were pure pure in heart, pure in thought, pure in deed. Nothing was. They were naked and unashamed because there was nothing to be ashamed of. It was all pure. But the minute they listened to another voice and decided for themselves that they knew what was good, that they knew what was pleasing, that they knew what was.

Let’s read it. What did Eve say? So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, she determined it was good for food. When God said it was not, don’t eat of that tree. This is everything else you can have. That’s good. He commanded his goodness over it. But he said don’t eat of that. She said, or saw, that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes. Oh, how that looked so nice. It just looked good. So she’s making a determination based off of how she thinks it looks and of course, she thinks it looks good because she has pure eyes but she’s contemplating that if it really is good for her when God said it wasn’t I hope you’re getting this, because there’s a dividing line here. It was good, god created it, but it wasn’t good for them. It had its purpose, but it wasn’t good for them to partake. And she’s looking at, of course, that it’s good, but she’s allowing herself to determine if it’s good for her instead of letting God determine if it’s good for her, instead of letting God determine if it’s good for her.

How many of us make choices and partake in things and do things because somebody else does them and we think, well, it’s good for them, it looks good, must be good for me. What if God has said to them that’s okay with your life, this is what I have for your life, that’s good for you. And then he turns to another one and he says that’s not good for you. I don’t want you to have that. God does individually raise us up, train us up for our lives and our purpose. That’s why he said, when Peter complained, that God’s Jesus said to John that he’s not going to die the same kind of death that Peter is and Peter’s like. Why not? Wanting it to be equal, wanting it to be the same? And Jesus’s response to him was what is it to you? You obey me, you follow me, you don’t worry about the other person, you don’t allow my relationship with the other person to determine my relationship with you. And we do this, we allow this all the time. Let me finish reading this.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, desired to make one wise Boy sure sounds good, doesn’t it? She took of its fruit and ate and she also gave. So this process is when we take this in, it doesn’t just affect us. We give it away. The stuff that we take in, we give away. Adam’s just sitting there watching this whole thing. It, adam’s just sitting there watching this whole thing. And then she gave it to him and he took it. We’ve got to be so careful because up to this point, they had God only vision. Up to this point, before she ate of the fruit, they had all God only vision, seeing only through the eyes of purity and love and acceptance and plenty and blessing. But now they have the knowledge of good and evil. Now they have evil in their eyes. Where before there was only good, now they have evil in their eyes. That’s why our condition is now what it is.

Let’s go to 1 Corinthians 13, 12. 1 Corinthians 13, 12. And it says we see through a glass, darkly and only in part. Why is that? Why do we only right now see through a glass darkly? Because we have the knowledge of good and evil. We can’t see fully the beauty of God, we can’t fully see the purity, we can’t fully see the beauty and the holiness because we have been darkened. We have allowed evil to come in. We allowed dark to come in.

Sadly, now this takes the grace of God all over our vision to see what God sees. Grace was imperative so that we could fix our eyesight to be able to see. Habakkuk 1.13 says or tells us that God’s eyes are pure and they cannot look at evil. God’s eyes are pure. So what he’s wanting to do, by the grace of God coming to us, making us new, restoring us to pre-fall condition, is to say I’ve got to fix your eyesight to pre-fall condition is to say I’ve got to fix your eyesight, I’ve got to fix what you see, because you see through this half good, half evil going on, and who knows what the percentage really is that we see Depends on how much we’re taking in right what we’re taking in.

The more I take in of the goodness of God, the more I can see through the lens of God. But the more evil that I take into my eye, the more I am affected and what goes in comes out. I have to be really careful. I get really worked up when I look at what’s happening around the world and in the news and all the political stuff. I get really worked up and I have to really really watch the amount of time that I allow myself to see Because in my seeing I give out and what I give out will be taken up by somebody else. I’m giving to somebody else what I have and it may not be pure and beautiful, so we have to be careful.

I mean, have you ever gone to write that text and it’s in response to something that you’ve scrolled through and the Holy Spirit says no, no, no, no, no, no. You don’t need to send that and erase it. But it’s happened to me many times. Just your comment is not necessary. Erase it, move along, and somebody needs to hear that today. Erase it and move along.

Do you realize that God wants us to see how he sees to be led by God’s eyesight? There’s a beautiful verse in Psalm 20, or Psalm 32, verse eight, and should go. I will guide you with my eye. He’s saying my eyesight is pure, is undaunted, untainted. My eyesight sees exactly what I have purposed. My eyesight sees everything that I have provided for you and the way I’m making for you. My eyesight sees, through the fact that you have been washed by my son’s blood, that you are righteous, clothed in righteousness because of Jesus, that you are no longer guilty. He also sees your brothers and sisters in Christ that way.

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This book is available today and we are to see our brothers and sisters in Christ that way, and we are to see our brothers and sisters in Christ that way when we are guided by our own eye, our own assessment of the situation, our own calculations of what we’re seeing. We do so tainted by what we have experienced or what we have not experienced, or what seems good to us, forgetting that we don’t get determined to determine what is good. Only God gets to determine what is good. How many times have we judged a person, their motives or situation, an outcome that has happened and then been proven wrong or worse? We refuse to see by choice, because pride or an evil eye won’t be corrected. So we go from seeing darkly to blind and unable to see anything right or holy or good or the way that God intended. How many times have we said hindsight is 20-20? I say that all the time and you know what we mean when we say that. It means that now that I’ve gone through it and I can see the whole picture because it’s already over now I can see clearly what I didn’t see before and I would have done things differently had I known this. It’s the old. You know if I knew then what I know now, because that’s how good and evil eyesight works.

If we look at Genesis 3, verses 6 and 7, it says so. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, hindsight. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. When we eat of the tree, deciding for ourselves or like Adam, are influenced by others, other thoughts, other feelings about what is good and evil. We will soon discover we are not, I’m sorry. We will soon discover. We are now exposed. Now we’re exposed, we see ourselves differently. We see each other differently. This wasn’t just Adam seeing himself naked. He now sees Eve is naked.

We not only see ourselves through evil eyes, but we judge others by our evil eyes. Not how God sees, not through the purity that God sees, not through the purpose that God sees, not through the forgiveness that God sees, but how we in a fallen state see, which only leads to pretending and hiding and covering up. It was only after confession and correction from God that could then cover us with love, that God would cover us with love and cover us with with sadly, with the sacrifice that was so costly too, an animal had to die. So costly too, an animal had to die. An innocent animal had to die. We have to understand that it wasn’t until when they saw their condition, they were in and through the now islands of good and evil through an exposed fear. I think about that because if you are somebody who is, you now say, okay, I’m exposed. That exposure produces fear in our hearts because we think now you will see the evil. I now possess good and evil. That’s hard to swallow.

Most of us have trouble with admitting that there’s evil in us. We might touch on it and say, yeah, that’s not good that, that, yeah, I shouldn’t have done that. But we don’t want to accept that we have sin, actual sin, and a sin nature, and that it’s evil, that anything that’s not born of God is born of Satan. I mean, it’s one or the other and we like to pretend that there’s this middle ground. That’s not good but it’s not bad. It’s just kind of this middle ground and we like to stay there, thinking that that’s a safe place and we’re there. And no, I didn’t mean anything bad by that, and we don’t many times we don’t. But if it’s not born of God, it’s born of the flesh, and if it’s born born of God, it’s born of the flesh, and if it’s born of the flesh, it’s born of Satan. Yikes, ouch, I mean that really hurts, it really hurts. But what it does for me is it forces me and I say, god, I have got to correct my vision. I’m seeing life, I’m seeing my circumstance, I’m seeing my family, I’m seeing my calling, I’m seeing my family, I’m seeing my friendships, I’m seeing whatever. Whatever you’re seeing, I’m seeing my situation. I’m seeing whatever. Whatever you’re seeing, I’m seeing my situation. I’m seeing my finances through an evil lens. God, what do you say? What do you see? Thank you for the grace to restore my vision.

God, in his mercy, in his grace, in his love for Adam and Eve, covered them both because they now needed it. They now needed covering. Before taking of this tree, before deciding that they knew what was good and not good, they were completely naked, completely unashamed, had no fear, saw nothing of evil intent, saw nothing of. They knew not evil and they didn’t need covering. There was nothing to cover. There was. There was no hidden motive, no hidden agendas, no, nothing to cover, no nakedness. They were free. They were truly free.

He covered them now because they needed it and he, being holy, couldn’t look on that evil, he couldn’t look on sin. So he covered them. He provided the means to cover them. What they had provided for themselves wasn’t sufficient the leaves they had sewn together, the little covering they could do. It just shows that our attempts at covering ourself are worthless. They produce nothing good. They don’t actually cover.

The only way to be covered is to confess. He made Adam and Eve confess. They confessed what they did. They confessed what happened and in their confession God said okay, now I will cover you, I will cover this. And he did it then. And he did it now. He did it then with the sacrifice of an animal and made cloth for them to cover themselves skins, because they needed skin to cover them. And then he does it now.

He did it now by the sacrifice of Jesus and his son, who gave his flesh, his skin, who gave his blood and covered us. Jesus’ blood covers our sin and washes us clean. So we can now see, by and through his sacrifice, that we have been covered, protected, that our blind eyes can now be opened so we can actually see what he sees. We aren’t supposed to then see ourselves as naked anymore. We aren’t supposed to see each other as naked anymore through that tainted lens. So how do we reconcile the evil we see or the evil that is shown to us? How do we deal with that? How do we reconcile that we’re supposed to see the world through this God lens when we are forced to look at and what’s being handed to us in this world is clearly not? I’m not suggesting, folks, that we allow evil not in the slightest If it’s a brother or sister in the Lord that we’re seeing something with. Scripture gives us instruction on how to deal with that that we maybe have to confront, but God needs to show us how to look at that situation first.

I heard a wonderful example of this. I can’t remember if I shared this a long time ago on here I think I have, but Pastor Jimmy Evans, who also runs XO Marriage conferences all over and teaches about restoring marriage, seeing each other properly and being able to do that well, tells the story of when he first became a pastor. There was an older man who attended his, a senior man who attended his congregation who did not like him. He did not like Pastor Jimmy and he had something negative to say all the time. He was just a constant thorn in the flesh, just a badger or somebody who was just cruel to him. And Jimmy constantly went to the Lord and was asking God to help him because this man he wanted to rip him up one side and down the other. He wanted to kind of dish back out what was being dished to him and felt like the man was acting in pride. And how could you say that God’s the one who put me in this position and you’re totally attacking me.

And one day, when Jimmy was praying, the Lord gave him a picture and that picture was of a boy, a young boy probably I can’t remember, if you say it was around the age of maybe between five and eight, I’m trying to remember and that little boy had suffered under the hands of an abusive father and that boy was broken. I mean, he was broken and the vision that God showed him it caused Jimmy to break down and cry over what he saw that this boy had gone through. And the Lord then said to him this is that man, this is that man. And what did that do for Jimmy? He said it didn’t change the fact that the man was what he did, what he did and acted the way he acted. He said, but it sure changed the way I saw him, it sure changed the way I looked at him. He began praying for that man, really loving that man, caring about that man before the Lord, taking the pain that that man was suffering with and bringing it before the Lord. Caring for that man before the Lord, taking the pain that that man was suffering with and bringing it before the Lord, caring for that man. You know, seeing through God’s eyes really does help us to know how to deal with the circumstance we’re faced with.

It could be an evil situation you’re dealing with, but sometimes we have to see it differently. Blatant evil must be dealt with. Just make sure that you’re not returning evil for evil. We have to do it the way God says. Sometimes evil is evil and it has to be dealt with immediately. But that good. We don’t want to return evil for evil, but good. Instead we want to give good. Make sure good comes from you. Make sure that you’re not matching the behavior of evil. Make sure that you are matching Christ’s behavior.

God may mean good may mean that you have to confront confrontation, boy, do I? I’m not. I don’t like confrontation, but I have to do it. I’m learning how to do it because I don’t like to do it, but I have to do it. Good sometimes means confrontation, but it’s confrontation with love. With love, I mean. That’s how God confronted Adam and Eve. He confronted them, he dealt with it and he also loved them and covered them. It’s both. The only way to know the right response, folks, is to allow the Lord to guide you with his eye. Let him, guide you with his eyes. That’s scripture. I read you out of Psalms.

King David never returned King Saul’s evil with evil. He had opportunity after opportunity to put a stop to the evil that was being done to him, and yet he did not see King Saul through the eyes of evil. He chose to see King Saul through the eyes of God’s anointing and God’s choosing, god’s calling, god’s timing, saying that God will take care of this. This is not for me to meddle in. I will, even though I’m having to run for my life, protect my life, do drastic things to protect myself. Though he had to do all of that, he refused to see King Saul in any other light. I mean, imagine that that’s why he was King David. We have to trust God with the outcome and we have to trust God with the timing of that outcome, and that can be tough. We could be in a long season of waiting. David was in a long season of waiting, a long season of waiting. The same can be said of Joseph.

He was dealt with by evil, and evil close to home, his brothers, his own brothers, those who should have loved him and cared for him. Yet he never let that evil done to him, cause him to leave his integrity his integrity before God and even before other people. And when the opportunity came that he could actually repay evil for evil to his brothers, to his brothers Instead, he covered them. He confronted them. He told them you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. He corrected them. He confronted them. But he corrected their eyesight and said don’t look at it this way. He told them don’t be angry with yourselves. I mean, he fully lets them off the hook and he sees the entire situation of 17 years, including years in prison, being lied about and thrown in a prison and forgotten, let alone the fact that they had sold him into slavery, that he was a slave.

Joseph took all of this and never once left off his integrity to not repay evil for evil. He kept his integrity and he knew it was to God he answered. He kept God in the first position. God, your God, you determine what I should do and how I should do it. He even continued to flourish in his gifts and using his gifts and talents for the Lord, even if that meant only using them in prison, using them as a slave, and using them in prison until God’s perfect timing. So did he confront them? Yes, but he corrected their eyesight. He covered them, he loved them. He did exactly what God did. He provided for them, provided food, provided protection, provided land, not just for them, for their entire families, for their generations. He took them in and repaid complete good for their evil, totally covered them, loved them, forgave them and gave to them. He did like I mentioned several episodes ago. But forgiveness, it can be broken down into the word for, and gave meaning I gave to you, as if what you did never happened, as if this I gave to you, like before something happened. Forgive, I have forgiven you. That’s a good eye.

Matthew, chapter 6, verses 22 and 23, says the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness, boy? That’s a question for us folks. That is a question for us. Have I allowed darkness in my eyesight? Have I allowed dark within? And if I have let darkness be my light that I look with, how dark is that darkness? Eyesight matters. Seeing with God’s eyesight matters. One only has to look at the story of Jacob and Isaac to know that when our eyesight is bad, we are easily deceived.

In Genesis, chapter 27, we see the story of Isaac and Esau and Jacob, and Isaac’s eyesight is dimmed. Now it’s because of old age, but the premise of how you see is very visible here and it says when Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, have circumstances caused your eyesight to go weak? Are your eyes, are they dim? And what took place? He called Esau. He said I want you, my son, to go and kill my favorite. You know, make my favorite meal. Go out and get wild game and make it for me. You know how I like it, and when you come back I’m going to bless you.

And in that blindness, jacob then came in and was able to cover himself. He covered himself to make himself look and feel and smell like Esau and he deceived Isaac and he took the blessing which caused division in their family. Jacob had to run for his life. Esau was going to kill him. Now there’s listen. Last week I explained Esau a little bit last week, but we have to understand there were both. There were more than one evil thing. There was more than one evil thing going on here and there was, you know, isaac had his favorite and Rebecca had her favorite, and so there’s this. You know there’s a whole family dynamic going on.

But the point is that if you have, if your eyesight is hindered, if your eyesight is dim, if your eyesight has now been darkened, if you have allowed darkness to come in, how you see will determine how you act. And it’s not the way God intended. God intended for us to see with his eyes, to be guided by his pure eyesight, to see others, to see the world, to see ourselves, to see our circumstance through his eyes, to let God determine what is good, not to usurp his authority, not to put ourselves on the throne and think that we get to determine what’s good. We will get into trouble every time and it won’t just affect us, it will affect everybody around us. This, this issue with Jacob and Esau and Jacob. It affected the family and generations, generations. It’s affected everyone. We need eyes that are full of faith. God is our trust in that he says what’s good is good is faith. We trust him that what he says is right, that’s faith.

Second Kings, chapter six, verse 17 says and Elisha prayed open his eyes, lord, so that he may see. Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he looked and saw. The hills were full of horses and chariots of fire all around. Elisha See with Gehazi’s natural eyesight, with eyes that have good and evil, based off of what he’s seeing and experiencing in the natural. He’s making determination and he’s terrified. He’s terrified, he’s in fear. But Elisha is looking with eyes of faith, he’s seeing through what God is showing him. And what did he see? That there was more with Elisha than there was with the enemy, and that their enemy was surrounded by the fiery chariots of God. That there was nothing to fear. There was nothing to fear. And then God proved it. It proved out what God said was true, it was right, it was good.

2 Kings 2, verse 10, eyes of faith. Elisha is asking something from Elijah and he says I want a double portion of your anointing. You’re about to leave and I want to carry double what you have. And what does Elisha say to him? He says if you can see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours, otherwise it will not. He was saying if you can see what’s happening in the spiritual. If you can actually see what God’s doing, if you can actually see with God’s eyesight, you can have it. But if you don’t see it, you can’t have it. Eyes of faith.

Isaiah 5, verse 21, sums up this whole thing, sums up the lie that Satan told Eve and that she believed, and then what it caused. And this is what it says. Woe to those who are wise. If you hear woe to you, that that means woes are coming to you. Woes are. They could be dangerous woes, they could be troublesome woes, they could be sorrowful woes, but woes come to those who are wise in their own eyes. Eve was wanting to partake because she thought it looked good to make her wise Folks.

Our wisdom needs to come from the Lord. Our vision and what we see has to be through his purity, through his purpose, through his call, through his faith in God. That God is who he says he is. We have a choice to make today. I pray that today you will take a few moments and just say, lord, correct my eyesight. You will take a few moments and just say, lord, correct my eyesight, correct my eyesight, cause me to see what you see. Help me not to put my own filter on this, that the knowledge of good and evil I have allowed to guide my decisions and my walk and my life, but that I want to see what you see, god. I want to act based off of how you would act. I want to follow these great examples of people who did what they were supposed to do. They didn’t all get it right all the time either. David didn’t always do what was right, but, folks, we have a choice to make. That’s why it’s a choice. That’s why the tree was in the middle of the garden. It’s a choice. We have a choice, and today we need to call on the grace of God for the strength not to partake, but the strength to not partake, not to partake to keep us from partaking.

Let me pray for you, heavenly father. I thank you for the grace of God. I thank you for the purity of your eyesight, how you choose to see us, the ones you love us, that you’ve chosen to see. Thank you for the purity of your eyesight, how you choose to see us, the ones you love us. That you’ve chosen to see us covered by the blood of your son, that we are righteous in your eyes because of his sacrifice, and we give you thanks and praise for what you have done for us. You have covered us. We could not and cannot cover ourselves. Thank you that you have covered us.

Father, I ask today for a special grace to come upon your people and that, as they seek to see the way that you see, that the empowering grace that you have given, the beautiful gift of grace that you have bestowed, will keep us, that we will have the strength we need To not give in to what we feel, not our own emotions, our own feelings, not what others say or others think, but what does God say? What do you think, father? That’s what we want. What you determine is good is good. What you determine is evil and that you should keep us from that is evil. So keep us from it. Like you have told us to pray in the Lord’s prayer, keep us from evil. Keep us from evil, god, and we trust that you, who hear and answer prayer, have heard us today and will empower us and give us the strength we need. Bless your people today. In Jesus’ name, we pray, amen.

Thank you so much for tuning in today. Do me a favor Hit that like button, hit that bell and subscribe. Get notified when a new episode is available. Visit me at my website, jamielucecom, or send me an email. Mail at jamielucecom. We’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.