My husband and I watched a movie the other night. I wanted to watch it with him, but I’ll be honest that it wasn’t “my” kind of movie. I closed my eyes a lot. As I sat there with eyes shut, I could still hear the noise of the battles and I couldn’t help but imagine – what if the bloody battles playing out on the screen were a picture of the real battles in the heavenly realm? Not a literal picture of course. But what if we could physically see the war in heaven with that kind of clarity?
The disciples asked Jesus why He taught in parables and He told them, “I tell these stories, because people see what I do, but they don’t really see. They hear what I say, but they don’t really hear, and they don’t understand… For the hearts of these people are hardened and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes – so… they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.” But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear” (Matthew 13:13-16, emphasis added).
By keeping our eyes closed, we’re really saying that we refuse to acknowledge the realities of life. That our hearts are indifferent. We would rather not see it. But there really is a war raging in heaven – it’s a bloody battle to win your heart. And Jesus said we’re blessed if our eyes are open to it.
So many of our prayers ask God to see our plight, to hear our concerns, and to respond with compassion. And He already has – “You can be sure I have seen the misery of my people… I have heard their cries for deliverance… Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So I have come to rescue them” (Exodus 3:7-8). God is not blind to our need or indifferent to our suffering.
Jesus entered into the battle on our behalf because of His genuine love for us. And He died a grisly, violent, heroic death in our defense. It was the bold, winning move in the war that began in heaven and spilled over onto earth. We live on a battlefield, but most of us refuse to acknowledge it. And then we wonder why things are the way they are. But what if we could really see it? What if we opened our eyes and refused to look away? What difference would it make?
At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, He was speaking in a house that so jam-packed that there wasn’t room for even one more person. I’m sure it was a fire code violation. And then four guys whose eyes were open arrived with their paralyzed friend. They knew that he needed healing and they believed Jesus was the man who could do it. So they went up on the roof and made a hole in the ceiling – a huge hole big enough to lower their friend through. “Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, ‘My son, your sins are forgiven’” (Mark 2:5).
Jesus didn’t start off with physical healing. The physical body, even one healed from paralysis, would still die. A healed soul lives forever. So Jesus gave the man what he really needed. It would have been more than enough if Jesus had stopped there.
An argument ensued with some religious teachers who were in the room. So Jesus used physical healing as proof of what they couldn’t see – “I will prove that I, the Son of Man, have the authority on earth to forgive sins. Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, take your mat, and go on home, because you are healed!” (Matthew 9:6, emphasis added) Spiritual healing came first, and then physical healing. It began in the unseen realm and then was manifested in the visible realm.
This life was changed because of the friends’ faith. They refused to look away from their friend’s need. Their eyes were open to see how it could be met. So they brought the man to Jesus and laid him at His feet.
This is what we do when we pray – we come before God and we lay our concerns at the feet of the One who is merciful. When we pray, we fight back against the enemy who says that it’s a hopeless cause, that nothing’s ever going to change. We enter the battle in the unseen realm and we wait in faith for Christ’s victory to manifest itself in visibly changed lives. We can’t see it – yet – but we know that it’s true.
What is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV