A weekly meeting with Apostle Daphne Crause.
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What are you seeing?
1 Samuel 16:7 says,
But the LORD [Yahweh] said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance, or the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for [the LORD [Yahweh] does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD [Yahweh] looks at the heart. [GBMV]
The Outward Appearance
Many years ago, I remember going to a party or an event or something like that. There were a whole lot of people. And as I entered into the room, I was there for a while, and then I did a quick scan of the people in the room.
And there was one lady who stood out to me, but she didn’t stand out to me for good reasons, if you want to call it that. If she was a guy, I would not have said, Wow, this guy is tall, dark, and handsome and looks amazing. The lady was a little bit plump.
She didn’t have much makeup on, if I can remember. Her hair was just ordinary. She was just like plain Jane, like somebody you would call a plain Jane person.
And unfortunately, I made a judgment there which was wrong. I judged her, and I thought, This woman looks like a loser. She doesn’t look like she’s successful in life and that sort of thing.
Well, later on, I ended up actually getting to be introduced to her, and I began to talk to her. And as I started to talk, I was still a little judgmental. I still wasn’t too sure about what the whole thing I would find when I talked to her.
But as we spoke, I realized she’s actually very sweet and very down-to-earth. And actually, she was not a loser. She had her life together.
And when I saw that, I had to repent and ask the Lord to forgive me for not seeing through his eyes and for making an unjust judgment. The opposite is also true. Some time ago, I went with a lady to the emergency room at one of the hospitals.
She needed a doctor to check her out urgently. And we were waiting for a doctor to come in, and then we saw this amazing-looking guy. He was tall, dark and handsome, and he looked amazing.
And we both thought, Wow, I hope he comes to go and check you out. I mean, that would just be awesome. But then he opened his mouth, and he had the most awful, just weird accent and the way of talking and things like that.
And I thought, but two things didn’t match. The way he spoke and the way he looked didn’t match. And I realized I’d made a judgment then as well, which was not good.
It’s so easy to judge people, isn’t it? It’s like King Saul, who always looked for the best-looking people and the tallest and the strongest and whatever for his army. And anybody else that wasn’t in that category, he kind of thought of as trash. But, you know, sometimes those people that you think are trash, that you think have nothing in them, have the most amazing qualities inside of them, you just need to give them a chance to let those qualities out.
Sometimes you might look at a sour, miserable person and think, this person never smiles. They look so miserable. As the expression goes, they look miserable as sin.
But you don’t know that person. They may have just gone through a grief. They may have lost their spouse or parent or sibling or something, and they’re grieving.
That’s why they look miserable inside. But you won’t know it until you actually ask the Lord to show you or you actually just don’t judge them. We often try when there’s a teller who looks a bit miserable or something, we try and smile to them and try and make them feel a little bit happier because we don’t often know what’s going on inside of them.
What The Lord Sees
You may know that the scripture I shared above was taken from when Samuel went to go to the house of Jesse and the Lord had said to him, go and anoint somebody else king, not Saul, because Saul had made a total mess. You know the story, I’m sure, how Samuel went there and he looked at all Jesse’s sons. He went one by one.
Obviously the oldest son was the most good-looking guy, and Samuel thought, this is the king. And the Lord said, no. And then he went to the next one, and the Lord said, no.
And the same thing all the way down until there was no sons left. That’s what Samuel thought. And then he said to Jesse, is there anybody left? And Jesse said, little David.
So they called David. And if you looked at David externally like I looked at that lady, you would think he was the worst possible candidate ever. He was young and he was weak, and you would just think, the Lord, what is going on here? But the Lord knew what David had inside of him, and even though other people may have thought he’s an absolute loser, he could never make a decent king.
The Lord knew about it. So I want to look at how the Lord sees us as believers, some of the things that he looks at when he looks at you as a believer. Firstly, he sees your potential and your humble heart.
As with David, he sees what you or others may not see. He sees that you maybe don’t think terribly much of yourself. You might think you’re not very good at things, you’re a loser, you have no hope for the future.
But you see, you’re special to him, and as you show that humble attitude, he will lift you up. David started out as a little shepherd watching some sheep, and later on he became Saul’s harp player, which was hardly a greater promotion, and it was like that for a long time. But then the story changed when he killed Goliath, but he didn’t do that in his own strength.
He waited on the Lord, and the Lord gave him the victory because he trusted the Lord and because he put his faith in him. The Lord can see your heart of love. Flowing in love and loving the Lord is really important, and when you do this, it covers a multitude of sins, as it says in 1 Corinthians 13.
Flowing in Love
The Lord is love, so you need to do this with him and flow together with him in love. It’s also one of the most important things for you as a believer to flow out in love to other believers, and I think the Church is sadly lacking sometimes with this. In fact, we had a pastoral conference last year, and that was one of the things my late husband shared so much on every single session that we had.
Of the five sessions, he emphasized flow in love. Let the Lord love through you. Let him help you, especially when you’re having a problem with some people, like some people do.
Sometimes it’s difficult to love people, but if you let the Lord love through you, you can actually overcome it, and you can do it fine. The Lord looks at you without masks. He sees you as you are.
You don’t need to have any acceptance or recognition when it comes to the Lord. Well, you don’t have to strive to get it. The Lord sees you as you are, and he loves you unconditionally.
You don’t have to try for him. Some people really try hard. They try and do something that they feel will please the Lord, and then when something goes wrong, when they get all upset and think they’ve missed the mark and the Lord’s going to just not love them anymore or not take care of them anymore, but it’s not correct.
He will always love you unconditionally, and you don’t have to try. In Ephesians 1.6, it says,
Leading to the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he has made us accepted and highly favored in the Beloved [one]. [GBMV]
He recognizes you. He favors you. He sees you as something so special, and he loves you and adores you.
He sees you as a special child. He dotes over you and the things that you do for him when you do it from the heart. If your attitude is right, it doesn’t matter, even if you fail.
You might try to minister to somebody. You might mess up. You might actually do something that you shouldn’t do or something, but the Lord knows your heart, and if your heart is right and your attitude is right, he will never condemn you.
He will always just come and show you how to change things, and he’ll help you. Satan is the one who condemns you. So if you’ve messed up or something like that, the Lord does not take that as something bad, especially if your attitude was right.
He sees your willingness to be molded. You need to allow him to mold you and shape you. It’s kind of like the passage where it’s like he’s the potter and you’re the clay.
He needs to make you and shape you into something special, and when you allow him to do that and he sees your heart and your willingness to do that, then he comes in and he does something special in your life, and whatever he does in your life, you can be a blessing to others. And then the last thing is he knows your emotions. You can’t hide anything from the Lord.
You may be able to try and hide something from people, but you can’t hide from the Lord. He knows your emotions, both your good and your bad emotions. He knows what you’re going through, your negative things.
He knows the pains, the stresses, the anxieties, the pressures, all of those things that you’re going through, and he loves you and he wants to help you with it. He also knows when you’re excited or happy and rejoicing. If you’re going through negative things, he will comfort you, he’ll strengthen you, he’ll help you to overcome those bad emotions, he’ll tell you what to do, and then when you are happy and you’re full of joy, he will rejoice with you.
He feels whatever you’re going through and he knows the best way to help you with it. So how do you show someone what is really inside of you? How do you do it? You do it through speech. Why do I say this? Because when I got that lady talking, what I thought was her as a loser, she actually changed my mind as I heard her talk to me, and I realized your speech comes from your spirit and your spirit is kind of like the real you.
And so if you get people talking, it actually helps you to see what exactly is going on inside of them. You show what you have inside of you. Words can lift you up and encourage you, or if you use negative words, they can cause frustration, anger, or depression.
Speaking is Important
So do you want to know what a person is really like? Try and get to speak to them. Why don’t you ask them a question and then let them do the talking and you’ll soon see what’s inside of them. It’ll come out and you’ll understand what’s going on inside of them.
My son and I always like talking to people. I love asking people questions. If I see something, like I see that they’re tired or something, I comment on it and we ask them about it or something.
And often it’s led to some amazing conversations. It’s led to people really being blessed by what we say. And so I find it interesting to do that sort of thing, and I think more people maybe need to do that just to get people talking.
There’s so many people, well, I’ve seen and I’ve done it myself as well, where you just don’t seem to care about what somebody is going through or you just see a stranger and you don’t say hello or talk to them or something like that. But I think it’s important to do that, to actually strike up that conversation and ask them what’s going on and they will start to show you inside their heart what’s going on. How do you change from judging from not judging? You need to try and walk with the Lord and feel his presence.
On a daily basis, you can ask him, Lord, just come and walk with me and help me feel your presence. Do you know why? Because when you do that, you pick up his nature. When you spend a lot of time with somebody, you can pick up their nature.
As a husband and wife, if you really get to know each other well, this happened with me and my husband, my late husband, we would start to say the same thing at the same time. We would see something happening and make the same comment. And this is what happens when you walk with the Lord.
When you take him with you and you ask him to show you what is going on, you start to pick up his thoughts, and after a while, you may get a revelation of what’s going on inside of someone even before they tell you what’s going on. It might surprise you to know how the Lord sees people. Of course, it’s always positive with the Lord.
I remember my late husband sharing that sometimes he would be praying with people or having a ministry time, and then a prophetic word would start to come. And he would think, I don’t know what the Lord is going to do with this person because I don’t see much ministry potential in them and things like that. But the Lord would come through and say, this person is so special.
I’m going to raise them up. They’re my chosen vessel and things like that. And sometimes it surprised him.
But you know, the Lord, as I said, he is always good. He’s always encouraging. And no matter what you might see externally, he sees the good and the potential and the wonderful things inside of you.
Final Thoughts
So to wrap it all up, the Lord does not look on externals, and we shouldn’t look on externals either. As a believer, we shouldn’t judge anyone in the flesh. So let me issue a challenge to you for this week.
Try and walk with the Lord and try to see as the Lord sees people and try to speak blessing on them. As you do this, you’ll pick up his heart and see the special qualities that is in each person that you come across. Let me just pray for you now in the name of Jesus.
I thank you, Lord, that you are the one who can help us to see as you see. Thank you, Lord, that you always see the potential, no matter what it looks like on the outside. And I ask, Lord, that you would challenge us as believers to walk with you and to look at the good inside of people and to begin to flow on in love and to flow on in blessing to others so that people can be lifted up and your body can be edified.
Thank you, Lord, for doing it now in the name of Jesus. Amen.
In Him Love
Daphne J. Crause
Apostle and Servant of Jesus
GBM International