Then His disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”

 But He answered and said, “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.  Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.”

Matt 15:12-14

In the introductory part of this article, I spoke on the phenomenon of spiritual blindness and the its dangers, the Pharisees learned in the law and matters of religion were the leaders of the nation of Israel but were declared blind to God and his purposes by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Their blindness had grievous consequences for themselves and the nation, it is no different today, spiritual blindness wherever it is found will always lead to a very unpalatable conclusion. It can hinder or delay perhaps even frustrate the counsels of God for a people, nation or a generation.

One of the great requirements for spiritual leadership or even leadership at any level is vision, the ability to see a desired or projected future or end.

No wonder Paul prayed for the Church in Ephesus

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,  and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.

Eph 1:17-21 NKJV

Early on in my journey of faith, I read brother Hagin talk about how he began to pray the Pauline prayers for himself and how over time it caused his eyes to be opened to such a wonderful degree, I decided to do same and it was a life transforming experience.

Over the course of 6 months – a year, while I slept at night I would find myself in a semi conscious state where thousands of scriptures would literally fleet through my mind all night, many of those scriptures I had no recollection of reading but the effect was that it opened up the bible to me so wonderfully as concerning God’s unfolding plan and purpose for man through Jesus Christ, I saw things that transformed my walk and ministry and still do till today.

In the spiritual life as in every other area of life, vision is everything, the capacity to see is the most prized of all.  In the Old Testament it is written,

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Deut 29:29

Our inheritance is connected to what we see, a Church led by a visionless leadership will be unable to experience and enter into its inheritance even so as with a nation.

It is God’s way to show you where you are going before he takes you there, even so we must point out that the enemy of our souls seeks to corrupt our vision by pointing us to seeing what he wants us to see. This brings me to the thought that spiritual blindness is blindness in relationship to God and his ways or way which is Jesus.

The scribes and Pharisees had their eyes on something else other than Jesus so to God they were blind but to the devil and his ways they were well sighted.  The Church of this day may be blind to God or his ways but they are certainly not blind to the devil and his ways.

You are what you look upon

Whatever catches your attention and your gaze is what you transform to, this is a law of the spirit, this is why we are continually being exhorted in scripture to ‘look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; we are told not to fix our attention on heavenly things and not on things on the earth (Col. 3:1)

In the Church today we must encourage people to return to Jesus and fix their gaze on him, if there is  a message we need to rediscover again, it is Christ and him crucified there is a caricature of the true faith that has become the dominant expression of Christianity, this caricature is rich in good sermons, rich in works, rich in the temple maintenance culture but does not know Jesus Christ as H should be known.

The average believer (Ministers inclusive) believes that he has to do good, keep the law, serve in Church so that he may go to heaven when they die, to us our ultimate goal is to make heaven but this is not God’s ultimate goal.

God’s ultimate goal is that we may be conformed to the image of his son Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29), God’s desire has always been for sons who reflect his glory.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;

Gen 1:26

He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

John 1:11-13

For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren,

Heb 2:10-12

If this statements above are true then we ask why is this truth not so commonly preached in the Church today, the answer is simple those who should preach it are blind to it, so they preach what they see whether it is corrupt or not

As they preach so we are, so if we agree the Church has issues, it is only because the pulpit has issues. Remember Jesus said if the blind lead the blind they will both fall into the same ditch.

The reason why the Lord raised up the fivefold offices was very clearly spelt out in the scriptures, it was so that we all may come to the fullness of the stature of Christ, the Church will never get to this place as a body if the ministry does not recapture her vision or her sight

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,  for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,  till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;  that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,  but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ —  from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Eph 4:11-16

Does this mean that there is nothing good happening in the Church? No at all, there are many good things which we do in the Church, many powerful teachings come from our pulpits and there are many sincere people who serve God with all their hearts and who want to do right by all men, but this is the point, if we do all things well and fail in this, we have fallen far short of God’s purpose in the new creation!

This is the lesson we learn from Revelation Chapter 2

“To the angel of the church of Ephesus write,

‘These things say He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lamp stands:   “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars;  and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary.   Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.  Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lamp stand from its place — unless you repent.   But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Rev 2:1-6

It is interesting that these words were written to the Church in Ephesus, the same Church that Paul delivered his revelation of the purpose of the fivefold ministry, somehow over the years the Church became blind to this and the Lord had to draw her attention to it once again.

I believe this is what the Lord is seeking to do for us today, we must come back to the Lord and be healed of our blindness so that once again, he and his will become the center of our pursuit and work and as we do this we will be able to enter into his inheritance as believers and experience His will done in our nation.

To be continued….