The Discrimination of the Invisibles

June 8, 2008
Humans definitely tend to being narrow-minded, stuck-on-themselves creatures. We always have
to discriminate someone. Whether it's folks of a different race, belief system, opinion, outward
appearance or from another country than ours, another soccer team, age-group, or whatever, we
tend to reject and antagonize them.

Whoever or whatever's not like us isn't cool.

One species or party we specially discriminate against is the invisibles.

It's probably the one thing we hold most against God: "It's His own fault if we don't believe in Him.
Why can't He make Himself visible, like everybody else?"

That's not what we actually say or think consciously with those words, but that's the way we act.

"Why should I give any marbles to God when I can't even see Him?" "Why should I be interested
in His strange, invisible Kingdom, when all that interests me right now is what I can see, touch
and feel and caters to my physical cravings?" "Why the heck should I be interested in anything
that doesn't live up to those qualities?"

Especially members of the younger generation, who have had impulses from the media cater to
them basically non-stop since the moment they were born, find the invisible realm to be extremely
"boring," to say the least. Well, y'all know what I think about boredom...

What I mean is, it's pretty tough trying to get folks interested in the Spirit World these days. At
least the good side of it. But is it really God's fault that we seem to be more interested in His
opponent and find whatever he has to offer a lot more intriguing? Is God really that boring? Or is
something wrong with our appetite?

Probably a lot stems from wrong concepts, too. Our classical concept of God includes the notion,
for instance, that He doesn't like or approve of some of the most fun and delightful things in life.
We consider that we have to be "bad" if we really want to have some fun.

There's a lot of jokes going around about "no place to meet old friends like hell," and that that's
supposed to be the place where most of the fun is happening.

Well, not in my opinion, nor my idea of Heaven, which, as far from the norm as it may be, is only
a fraction of a shadow of what it really is and is going on there... Whereas some of the reports I
hear about hell tend to be rather disappointing, to say the least.

So, what's the score with God's invisibility trip, and why can't He just make it easy on us and
show Himself? Like Phillip, one of the disciples said, "Just show us the Father, Lord, and it's
enough!" In other words, "Show me God, dude, and then I'll believe for real! All doubts finally
eliminated."

Sure enough! But that would be a wee bit too easy! We'd all be so intimidated, surely you couldn't
speak about "free will" anymore. We'd all know that "Woe is us" if we didn't behave & follow E.T.'s
advice to "be good!"

So, God made some rules to this game called life, and in order to be a winner in this game, you
just can't be as dumb as to only believe in what you see.

The way to score is by means of a magical, mysterious ingredient called faith. It's by faith that we
can skip that bummer called death, for instance. Faith is also what makes God like us. So much,
in fact, that He'll adopt us when we've got it and calls us His own children. Whereas without it, it is
impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6).

Faith is like a secret super weapon in this game of life, comparable to some of those computer
games where you can pick up certain super powers in hidden corners that will enable you to kill
like 10.000 monsters at a time, instead of just one or instead of you being eaten by them...

It is described as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Actually,
the word "substance" here comes from the original Greek word "hupostasis" which means title
deed. You own the thing you hope for, if you have the faith for it! And Luther translated the word
"evidence" as "not doubting." You don't doubt the existence of the Invisibles, including their Head
Honcho.

Well, the good news is - that whole shebang called Spirit World isn't going to stay invisible
forever. Sooner or later we're going to see it. The only question is, how surprised or shocked are
you going to be? How strange & alien will it all feel to you? Or are you going to feel right at home?

So, one mindset that's going to help you prepare a little bit, is to get rid of that discriminating
attitude against invisible folks. They're really not that bad. And boring? Man, you have no idea
what you're talking about! In fact, you have no idea what fun really is, compared to what's
happening out there!

Computer games & Action thrillers are only cheap counterfeits of the Real Thing that's going
down all around us in the invisible Realm. The problem is that just because it's invisible, we figure
it's not real, when in fact it's a lot more real than our finite, temporal world, and the problem isn't
with them, it's with us. We just can't see'em. But you will, if you start believing... and, well, even if
you don't. It just might take you a bit longer.