Three Things the Enemy Does Not Want You To See

The Power of Seeing What You Already Possess

We're in the book of Ephesians, continuing a series called Identity Theft—an exegetical study exploring how most of our problems are not activity problems, but identity problems. When we only try to fix the activity, we're fixing fruit. When we deal with identity, we're dealing with the root. We will always behave in a way that is consistent with how we see ourselves.

Paul addresses believers in Ephesus in Ephesians 1:18–23, and his prayer reveals a critical principle: Your greatest problem may not be what you don't have. It may be what you don't see.

Could it be the issue isn't that you don't have something? Could it be that you don't see what you have? This truth is foundational: What you see by faith is what you get. If you don't see it before you see it, you'll never see it. We walk by faith, not by sight. By faith, we see with our ears and not with our eyes, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

The Critical Role of What You Hear

Sometimes we can't see right because we've been hearing wrong. One of the most consequential decisions anyone will make is who you give access to your ear. Throughout Scripture, beginning in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve destroyed themselves and diverted from God's intended purpose because they gave the wrong person access to their ear.

They started hearing wrong. They started seeing wrong. They began seeing God's protection as restriction—based on what they heard. Satan said, "God knows if you eat that, you will be like God." A tree they saw as protection, they began seeing as restriction based on what they heard.

Our problem is not a provision problem. It is a perception problem. This is what Paul addresses in his prayer in verses 18 through 23. Although this isn't primarily a teaching on prayer, Paul's prayer teaches us something vital: prayer should not just be sincere and spirited—prayer should also be strategic.

There is a place for both proactivity and reactivity in prayer. Your prayer should target what you see the enemy is targeting. Paul sees the enemy is targeting their sight, their perception. So he targets prayer in that exact area.

Understanding Spiritual Blindness

The enemy is subtle and shrewd. Sometimes Christians assume that sincerity is a match for his shrewdness. When we do that, we become victims of our naivety in the name of sincerity.

When we talk about spiritual blindness, understand this: Just because you can see doesn't mean you're not blind. Just because you can see in one area doesn't mean you're not blind in another.

Consider cataracts: they make the lens of your eye cloudy. You can still see, but your vision is cloudy. You might see that white lines on the road are lines, but you can't see them in their true color because cataracts have clouded your vision. Just because you can see doesn't necessarily mean you don't have cloudy vision.

That's what the enemy wants—for us to operate in cloudy vision. Paul, understanding this, targets prayer toward these spiritual cataracts. He prays very clearly in verse 18: "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened."

The word "enlightened" comes from the Greek word photizo—it literally means to flood with light. He's praying, "I'm praying that the eyes of your heart be flooded with light."

Here's what light does: It helps you see what already exists. Light helps you see things in the room you may be walking past—things that have been there all the time. Things you could take advantage of, things you have access to, things that could serve you well that exist but you can't see because you're in the dark.

Your salvation ushered you into a room with things you need. Paul is saying, "I am praying that God floods your heart with light so you could see all the stuff in this room that you've been walking past."

Sometimes people treat salvation like a waiting room for heaven—just sitting there waiting on Jesus to call you into heaven. But Paul says, This isn't just a waiting room. It's a recreation room. There's a whole lot of things in this room that you need and that you could take advantage of, but you can't see it unless light floods the room.

Some of us have been praying that God change our room when we need to ask God to change our vision. You're in the right room with the wrong vision. It's already in the room. Ask God to enlighten the eyes of your heart.

The Three Things the Enemy Doesn't Want You to See

Paul identifies three specific things in his prayer, and the enemy does not want us to see them. Here's how I've categorized them:

1. The Rope of Your Hope

In verse 18, Paul prays: "I pray that the eyes of your heart be enlightened that you may know the hope to which he has called you."

When light floods your heart, the lights come on in the room called salvation. And when those lights come on, you know the hope to which he's called you.

Understanding Biblical Hope

We often confuse the modern meaning of "hope" with the biblical meaning. When we say today, "I'm hoping all goes well," we mean we're wishing, we're desiring something, we're somewhat optimistic—but it's not anchored in anyone's ability to bring it to pass or in a covenantal promise.

Biblical hope is confident expectation based on covenant. It is not wishful thinking.

Möltmann, who wrote on the theology of hope, says faith and hope are companions. Faith believes God to be true. Hope is the confident expectation that God will actually perform what I believe to be true. Faith says, "I'm persuaded this is true." Hope says, "I am waking up in anticipation and expectation that this truth is about to be performed in my life."

Biblical hope is expectation based on covenant. God says, "I swear by no one other than myself because I can swear by no other. When you are faithless, I am faithful, for I cannot deny myself." This is unilateral covenant—God making an agreement with himself that you benefit from.

Look at your own life. There are situations you survived, experiences you overcame—not because you kept your agreement with God, but because God kept his agreement with himself.

This is what Isaiah 54:17 speaks to. We should be shouting off the B-clause: "This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord." Our hope should be rooted in God's history. He has a history of providing. He has a history of guiding. He has a history of making a way. He has a history of performing miracles.

So our hope is not based on ourselves but on looking back at God's history. And when doubt tries to creep in, we should simply remind ourselves: God's got history. His history should increase our confidence in his ability and willingness to be the same in our present and our future.

The New Covenant and Your Inheritance

When Paul talks to believers, he's referring to the new covenant. The Bible is comprised of an Old Testament and a New Testament—the word "testament" means agreement or covenant.

Jesus is your elder brother who has included you into his will. Upon his death, he bequeathed to you all the promises contained in the New Testament. Those promises are in the room.

You're sitting in the room, and there are promises in the New Testament that Jesus put in his will for you. Peace that passes all understanding is in the room. Joy unspeakable and full of glory is in the room. Freedom and liberation are in the room.

What Paul is saying is, "I pray that the light of God illuminates to show you all the stuff that the covenant has put in the room for you."

If you have an expectation for peace, then when you don't have it, something is wrong. Something needs to be fixed. Something needs to be aligned. If you have an expectation for joy, then when you hit seasons of frustration, you're going to do a reset. Because I'm not supposed to be here.

Holding Fast to the Rope

Why do I call it a rope? The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 10:23, "Let us hold fast to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful."

Hope is what you have to hold on to in the in-between time—between proclamation and manifestation. Sometimes there's going to be time between when God proclaims something and when it manifests. But you have to hold on to your confident expectation.

Hope is the rope that keeps you from drifting into depression. Hope is the rope that keeps you from drifting into despair. Hope is the rope that keeps you from drifting into disappointment. Hope keeps you from drifting too far.

It hasn't happened yet, but I'm holding on to the rope—to the confident expectation that even though I don't have peace that passes all understanding yet, I have a confident expectation based on a covenantal promise that peace will be mine.

2. The Riches of Your Inheritance in His Holy People

Then Paul also says in verse 18: "the riches of his glorious inheritance... in his holy people."

I got an inheritance in his holy people. This is crucial.

Where Your Inheritance Is

We can talk about what the inheritance is—it's the content of the new covenant. But what I want to focus on is not just what the inheritance is, but where it is. Some of what he has for you, he put in other people.

Paul is addressing unhealthy hyperindependence—a posture you can adopt when you don't properly deal with pain you've experienced from people. But this creates isolation. God is saying, "Some of what I have for you is in other people. I don't want you to just see the things in the room. I want you to see the people in the room."

Honor as the Key

Honor is the key that unlocks the blessings God placed in other people's lives for you. Often we pass by our blessings because we refuse to use the key of honor—based on past history, past interaction, based on what we think they did to us.

But the blessings in your house that you miss because you dishonor your significant other. The blessings in your children that you miss because you're dishonoring them. The blessings are often in the people you least expect.

In Mark chapter 6, Jesus goes back to his hometown. The Bible says he could do no mighty works there. He laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. One translation says he couldn't do it because of their unbelief, but when Jesus verbalizes what's happening, he uses the word honor: "A prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown."

The familiarity impacted the faith. The people said, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" Now, there were some facts they had wrong, but it wasn't blatantly disrespectful. Yet Jesus responded about honor.

We must understand the difference between disrespect and dishonor. Disrespect is about rudeness. Honor is high regard and high respect for God's people—a recognition that this is an image bearer of God who is carrying something that either I or somebody else needs.

Their assessment of Jesus wasn't incorrect. It was just incomplete. He was the carpenter's son, but that was all they saw. They didn't see his divinity, his capacity, his power. And they missed what God put in him because they only knew him as a carpenter.

Similarly, people may reduce you to how they met you. They don't know you're more than a carpenter. And how many people, when you mishandle them, are obligated to come back and let you try again? If you mishandle them, they may take whatever they had for you and go elsewhere.

This is actually biblical stewardship. Jesus taught his disciples, "When you go into cities and they don't receive you, let your peace return to you. Don't leave your peace with people who won't receive it. Shake the dust off your feet and go into another city, because there's somebody else waiting on what somebody else is taking for granted."

Spiritual Gifts and Interdependence

In 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, Paul writes extensively about spiritual gifts and interdependence. He's trying to get very gifted people to see: As gifted as you are, I didn't give them all to you. For you to do what I'm calling you to do, you're going to need stuff I didn't give you. And I'm going to put it in other people.

You need to be able to discern, recognize, and honor that so you can draw it out.

Witness and the Gospel

Here's where your witness becomes important. Paul's prayer becomes more than just a prayer for believers in Ephesus. It should become the pursuit of every person who takes their responsibility seriously: not just to follow Jesus for your own well-being, but to be a witness.

Different Bible writers take different angles with the gospel because they're writing to different people with different voids in their souls. Matthew writes to show Jesus is the fulfillment of messianic promise. Luke addresses his gospel to a specific audience. Each writer's angle is different because the people they're talking to are different and the void they have is where you show them the gospel fills.

There are people actively trying to live their life and reach their potential, and that's the hole in their soul. Your witness shows them the only way you're going to reach that is by coming into relationship and receiving capacity from the one who created you.

There are people living without peace. That's the hole in their soul. Your witness becomes a powerful picture that the only way you get the peace you want is through Jesus.

Different people have different holes in their soul that the gospel exposes and answers for. This is where your witness becomes important.

3. His Incomparably Great Power

In verse 19: "And his incomparably great power for us who believe. The power is the same power as his mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms—far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come."

This is a revelation of his power. Paul uses four different Greek words for power in these verses: kratos, dynamis (from which we get dynamite—ability and capacity), energeia (from which we get energy), and others. Each has different connotations.

Redemptive Potential

I call this concept redemptive potential—the potential you possess when God possesses you. It is the increase of your capacity once you get converted.

Before I'm a Christian, I have latent or dormant ability. The best I can do is walk fast on land. But once I become a Christian, my capacity changes. Now I'm walking on water.

Paul is saying, "I'm praying that the light come on and you see—you don't have to stay on land. You have capacity now that you did not have before."

You should be trying things you haven't tried before. Now I can do things I couldn't do before. I couldn't love enemies before. I couldn't take Romans 8:28 and use that as a way to reframe hard seasons in my life.

When my youngest son got a slight injury playing football, as a grown man who's been walking with Jesus, studying the Bible since I was 15, surrendered to Jesus since I was 19—there's a way I look at that differently now. My salvation has given me the capacity to see seasons like that differently.

This small injury that's taking him off the field could be God's providence protecting him from a bigger injury that would have kept him off the field longer. That's a reframe I would never have had before. That's power. It's the capacity to see differently, to think differently.

This is important not just for your personal well-being. It is important for your witness. I want to use your realization of your capacity as a revelation of a deficit that other people have that they didn't know they had until they saw you.

I'm calling you to this hope—not just because of your well-being, but because of your witness. I want you to model how to handle other image bearers of God. You should be teaching people how to treat people as image bearers carrying something you don't have.

The Gospel and Different Voids

When you look at how the gospel writers take different angles, that's a pattern we as Christians should follow. Different people have different holes in their souls that the gospel exposes and answers. There are people living trying to reach their potential—that's the void. Your witness shows them the only way is through Jesus.

There are people living without peace—that's their void. Your witness becomes a powerful picture that peace comes through Jesus.

This is why your witness is so important. The enemy doesn't want you to see these three things. But if you see them, you start living them. And when you start living them, other people see it in you.

Now everybody is like Nicodemus, coming to you and saying, "No one can do these things unless God is with them." No one can reframe their suffering like that unless God is with them. No one can handle people that way—people who mishandle them—unless God is with them.

The Prayer

I want to close with prayer. I feel stirred, compelled, and great conviction in my own soul to passionately pursue these areas.

Father, I thank you for the gift of your word. It is our daily bread, our spiritual sustenance. We pray for courage, clarity, and consistent conviction to pursue what you have put in the room for us.

Would you continue to use the light of your word to show us what is in the room—what we may have been walking past and missing.

Lord, I pray very specifically that you unlock and unleash redemptive potential. I pray for every person that has been reduced and relegated to just a carpenter—that they're coming out of compartmentalized use of their gifts into a season of full utilization of what you have deposited in them. Not for their own fulfillment, but for the flourishing of others.

I want the rope of hope. I want the riches of your inheritance. And I want a revelation of your incomparable power to those of us who believe. In Jesus's name, Amen.