Seeing is Believing – Walking In Power with Nate Ortiz

Hey, everyone, this is Nate and you are watching Walking in Powered.

Today, wherever you are, whether you're on the road or just at your home or at the office,

wherever you might be and you're watching this, I pray that this encourages you today.

And the idea that I'm talking about today is seeing is believing.

Many times we feel like we want this proof when it comes to God or that God is speaking

to us and everyone who is a follower of Jesus has been there one point or another where

they feel like, yeah, I feel like this is it, but I just, I, I need like greater proof.

And there's times you'll come across people who are their deep thinkers and they really

take some, a lot to process what God is doing in their life.

They feel like, I just, I just don't know if this is it.

And there's people who just take the approach of blind faith and they just hop in and they

just go for it and don't question anything.

And I think there's a spot where the pride, the spiritual meat and it's this idea of, just

because we're not seeing something active in our lives.

It doesn't mean that we can't believe that it is true and happening in real time.

And so if you have your Bible, if you take notes where that looks like for you, second

Corinthians chapter four verse 18, I'm going to be talking in that chapter, but it says,

so we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen since what is seen is temporary,

but what is unseen is eternal.

So I think about it this way, you know, if, depending on what era generation you're

part of, social media has changed so much in so many different ways.

And, you know, depending on what generation you are, there's a time where social media

didn't exist.

And that seems almost hard to imagine.

But when social media didn't exist, there are certain things that you just had to be

there to see it, right?

You maybe hang out with your friends or there was something that happened at a sporting

event and you just like, you just had to be there.

You had to see it.

But now within a time where we have everyone almost has the ability to capture something

on a phone and share it to everyone they know of you, the attacks, the social media,

and people have a shared experience or it's a perspective of the same experience that

everyone had.

So maybe it's a game when you shot at a sporting event that was caught by, you know,

the USPN or whoever, but then there's a person who was on the front row said, I caught

it on my camera as well.

And they share and provides a different perspective or experience of the same event that took

place.

And I bring that up just because I think we, we live in this time where it's like, if

you don't post it or you didn't share it, it didn't happen, right?

If someone said they, they're out at the grocery store and they ran into, you know,

whatever celebrity you think that would be no worthy, right?

And they said, like, I ran to them and I ran to this celebrity and they named this,

they told us how a rage of story.

You almost want some type of proof to feel like what did this really happen?

And I think with God, sometimes we have this idea of like, I want you to prove to me

that all of this is real and that this happened, this happened.

And I tell you that, you know, in the Bible time, people faced that same type of struggle,

that same type of idea that if God is really who he says he is, you know, Jesus said, you

know God said in Son Jesus, right?

In the Bible times, people faced that same dilemma.

They saw Jesus do miracles, he walked with them, he healed blind people, he brought people

back from the dead, he just, just amazing things where people still questioned what's

he the Son of God.

And to think about Jesus, his claims were so outrageous, he was either delusional or he

really was who he said he was.

And for people still not to believe it makes me think in, you know, 2024, there could be

people who can never get to that place of fully believing and fully trusting and having

faith in who God is and who Jesus says he is.

And so I want to challenge us to have this idea of, you know, believing a saying that when

we take God's word or when we're in these church services, where it might be, we just

take a moment and say, what do I really believe and live from that belief and let those beliefs

God are decision making.

That's really being going to see God move and work in our lives.

And so when second Corinthians chapter 4 verse 18 tells us the fix our eyes on what

is unseen because everything we do is temporary.

How do we do this?

It's easy look around the things in our lives.

In fact, this is tangible.

This is real to me.

Right?

From the clothes we wear at the house, we live in the car we drive.

These are things that we feel like communicate to other people who we are.

So what type of clothes we wear with the car we drive, it communicates something to other

people.

But according to this passage of scripture, these things are all temporary.

We know it, but what are we doing with the things that are unseen to people in our own

lives?

What are we believing in the unseen things that are in our lives?

So I have just three points.

As always, that's free to think about, to process.

And so when we want to have this idea that this belief system and the things that are unseen,

we have three things.

One, keep an internal perspective.

When we focus on the unseen, we gain an internal perspective on temporary things.

So the things that we care about, the things that we value, we feel like, oh, this is so important

to me.

Does it have eternal value?

Is this something that's going to benefit me in the long run?

Is this something that when I'm long gone from this earth, what is really going to matter?

What things am I giving to the people I care about?

Am I giving them my time, my heart, my life lessons, the things I've learned?

Or are we just living in this place of just saying, well, what can I accumulate here that

bring value to me or making me feel a certain way?

You know, world fixated on the temporary are not our eyes and to be focused on the eternal.

Challenge yourself, right?

Are there things that we say, no, I probably made this too much of our priority in my life.

I put this above God, I put this above relationship.

Now hear me out, we all like nice things.

I do, right?

But you can't let things lose their order in your life.

You must keep an internal perspective on things that you invest in.

Some things are not worth your time, worth your investment, worth your energy.

When you keep an internal perspective that helps you decide some of those things, the

second thing is develop your spiritual growth.

When you focus on the unseen, you prioritize spiritual growth and transformation over worldly

pursuits.

So the break that down is when you are thinking about who you are as a person spiritually,

when do you pray?

How do you pray?

Are you getting God's word in your heart?

The Bible tells us that we memorize this word that we may not sin against God.

That we have it in our hearts.

That it guides us, it leads us, and that we are growing into a, the individual God has

called us to be.

And everyone's growth looks different.

But at the same time, we must understand we have response but to what God is calling us

to.

So when you daily develop your spiritual growth, your soul is become healthy.

Your spiritual strength and your character is refined.

This is what God calls us to do when we go to the trials.

When we go through the struggles, there is a refining process that happens in our spiritual

growth.

I know people that just go through tough time to tough time to tough time and they don't

really take a moment to say God, like what are you showing me?

What are you trying to get off me?

What am I saying?

Are you trying to change?

We have to grow in that type of way.

And so be someone who prioritizes your spiritual growth daily.

And the third thing to round this out is when you have an eternal perspective, you have

hope and assurance.

And when we anchor our faith in unseen promises of God and find hope and assurance that

missed lives on certainties, there is nothing in life that is for certain, right, outside

of death and taxes, right?

There is this idea that we have to be people who live in a place of hope and assurance

that not based upon the things that we accumulate and things that we have around us, the things

that we deem to bring us comfort.

But what are the things you turn in that we say, you know, my hope is in Christ that things

can be crazy around me.

I've been going through, you could be going through a very difficult time right now.

But your hope and assurance needs to be in God.

Not that something else is going to come and help you out, right?

I mean, and obviously God can move through people to help you out and have a community that's

not what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about is this idea of, if we feel like every solution for every problem resides

in us just doing more, doing more, that's a tough place to be always.

But there's this idea that we say, even when I don't have the answers, I know God, you're

going to guide me toward you to go, allow me to lean into that.

In the unseen promises of God, we find our anchor.

Our faith is developed in conflicts, not in the moments of peace.

Our faith, we're going to be nice to say, our faith is just there and we believe God

in all the moments of our lives.

But the reality is when we're going through something difficult, it's hard to see God's

man, it's hard to feel like He's near.

But that's where our faith is developed, that's where we grow, that's where we are truly

saying God, my hope and assurance is in you.

And so when you think about your life, when you think about your week, your months ahead,

take a moment to think about, am I really trusting on the things unseen?

Am I really believing God that He's going to come through the way He said He is?

And I think that's going to help shape and develop you and be who God has called you to

be.

So I hope this was encouraging to you.

I hope you just take a moment, you've got this video done just to pray and take some

time to reflect, take some notes and look at those areas of your life where you're saying,

yeah, I need to grow in this area.

I need to have more of this idea of belief and that will be in the sea, God's hand.

I'm being the sea's favorite in my life.

I'm the way that I haven't seen it before where I've seen this grace and love as mercy

in the middle of difficult seasons.

But I can say this, God is always near in every moment, highs and lows.

He is near to us, but I encourage you to believe every word that's in the Bible to help you

grow to God has called you to be.