by Pastor Daniel
 
Introduction
What are spiritual realities?  In a nutshell, in the Christian worldview, there are in fact two realities.  They are the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan.  These are the two realities that govern our world today.   These are two contrasting realities in existence.  To name a few, it is like, “Children of God vs. Children of Satan, Slaves of Christ vs. Slaves of the Devil, Regenerate vs. Unregenerate, Eternally Alive vs. Eternally Dead, Spiritually Alive vs. Spiritually Dead, Godly View of Life vs. Selfish View of Life.” and the list will probably go on for a long time.
 
But the greater question is this - what reality I adopt and live will determine how I behave.
 
When I don’t see it
There is a story in the Bible from 2 Kings 6:8-17.  It is a story about the troubled King of Syria who seemed to fail to defeat the King of Israel.  Each time he came out with a strategy, the King of Israel knew about it.  Even words uttered by the King of Syria in his bedroom (supposedly to be a secret), were known by the King of Israel.
 
Being furious, he enquired about this and discovered that a man of God seemed to know everything and therefore wanted him killed.
 
So one day, this King sent a great army with the intention to capture this man of God who was Elisha and kill him.  This is the irony - the king has to send a great army to defeat just one man, who was not even a soldier, surely not Rambo.
 
What made Elisha so special and fearsome all at the same time? 
 
It is the perception of his spiritual realities. 
 
The story unfolds when the soldiers of the Syrian army came and the servant of Elisha came running to his master to report the case.
 
He was filled with fear.  It was obvious - whole army coming against just one man.  There is no way Elisha could escape this attack.
 
When I think of this servant, it reminds me of what it is like when we don’t see this reality in our lives.  When crisis or trouble comes, we panic and are filled with fear.  There are so many things that cause fear in our lives.
Sickness (with the Covid19 has caused panic in many people, Christians and non Christians alike), financial crisis, family troubles, relationships disappointment and of course death as well.
 
Anything that comes as an onslaught to our faith, we can either respond in fear or in faith.  This is the case where the servant responded in fear.
 
When we do see it
This is when Elisha lived in another spiritual reality - he said to his servant, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
 
When those words were spoken, and if we were there - we might conclude that Elisha was out of his mind or that he was suffering from Bi-polar depression or a manic state.
 
We may even conclude, “He is not living in reality!”.  However what we have overlooked is that - his is a different reality.
 
Then Elisha did another thing to show us the other spiritual reality.  He prayed for the young man - “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.”  And so the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he SAW, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha....  And we know the rest of the story - again the plans of the king of Syria were destroyed.
 
All this came about because there is another reality - the reality of God’s kingdom. 
 
CONCLUSION
The question I have been confronted constantly is this - “Do I see?”.  As a pastor of the church, I prayed constantly that the leaders and I would be able to see the realities of God.  Jesus constantly taught this reality when he said, “The kingdom of God is already here.”  One reality says, “Worry”, God’s reality says, “Don’t worry”, one reality says, “Fear!” but God’s reality says, “Have faith.”  It is not blind faith, it is faith because God is.  As we are confronted with many uncertainties in life, may our eyes be opened to God’s certainty and his reality.