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27 Contacts

Obedience Holy Spirit Vision

Source: "Doctors find 27 contact lenses in woman's eye," By Nancy Coleman, CNN Updated 1:26 AM ET, Wed July 19, 2017

Link to Source: Click here to view source

Contributed By: James Miller | Date Posted: 2018-12-28

Scripture: Isaiah 44:18 ; Matthew 13:15

Author: James Miller
13

ILLUSTRATION

The British journal of medicine reported in July of 2018 that a woman in England had 27 contacts removed from her eye.  She would put them in but wasn't always able to find them, so she just assumed they had fallen out. 

Actually, the lenses were slipping to the back of her eye and getting stuck.  She just kept adding new ones in, and they piled up. But despite having 27 lenses in her eye, her vision was not 27 times stronger.

APPLICATION

We can add more and more theological information to our minds, but if our hearts aren't transformed, it won't give us a clearer vision of God .  Information without the Holy Spirit can't bring about the life that God desires.

"They cannot comprehend or understand, for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see, and closed their minds so they cannot understand" (Isaiah 44:18). 

Who Needs An Electrical Toy?

Pride Vision Spiritual Blindness

Source: Neatorama

Link to Source: Click here to view source

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2016-02-26

Scripture: Proverbs 16:18 ; 2 Corinthians 6:2

Author: Illustration Exchange
11

ILLUSTRATION

Neatorama writes:

In 1876, Western Union had a monopoly on the telegraph, the world's most advanced communications technology. This made it one of America's richest and most powerful companies, with $41 million in capital and the pocketbooks of the financial world behind it. So when Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a wealthy Bostonian, approached [William] Orton with an offer to sell the patent for a new invention Hubbard had helped to fund, Orton treated it as a joke. Hubbard was asking for $100,000!

Orton bypassed Hubbard and drafted a response directly to the inventor. "Mr. Bell," he wrote, "after careful consideration of your invention, while it is a very interesting novelty, we have come to the conclusion that it has no commercial possibilities... What use could this company make of an electrical toy?"

The invention, the telephone, would have been perfect for Western Union. The company had a nationwide network of telegraph wires in place, and the inventor, 29-year-old Alexander Graham Bell, had shown that his telephone worked quite well on telegraph lines. All the company had to do was hook telephones up to its existing lines and it would have had the world's first nationwide telephone network in a matter of months.

Instead, Bell kept the patent and in a few decades his telephone company, renamed American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), had become the largest corporation in America ... The Bell patent - offered to Orton for a measly $100,000 - became the single most valuable patent in history. Ironically, less than two years of turning Bell down, Orton realized the magnitude of his mistake and spent millions of dollars challenging Bell's patents while attempting to build his own telephone network (which he was ultimately forced to hand over to Bell.)

Instead of going down in history as one of the architects of the telephone age, he is instead remembered for having made one of the worst decisions in American business history.

APPLICATION

It's hard to imagine a more obvious business opportunity than the one turned down by Western Union's William Orton. Mr. Orton couldn't see the "electrical toy" for what it could become. He was too blinded by his present success to appreciate the profound implications this opportunity held for the future.

This is exactly the situation many place themselves in as they scoff at the opportunity offered to them in the Gospel. Do they continue on as they are, content with their current success, or do they embrace this divine opportunity to have their lives count, not just for now, but for eternity?

Don't end up scrambling like William Orton, after it's already too late, to make up for the lost opportunity of a lifetime. 

"For God says, "At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you." Indeed, the "right time" is now. Today is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2, NLT).

"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).

You Go Where You Look

Vision Guidance God's Will

Contributed By: David Cranford | Date Posted: 2013-06-06

Scripture: Proverbs 29:18 ; Job 31:7

Author: David Cranford
9

ILLUSTRATION

The first time I went snow skiing, I was overwhelmed. What does a flat-footed, flat-landed swamp boy from Louisiana know about snow skiing? I thought only way I was ever going to come down that mountain was in the ski patrol bone bucket. Thankfully, I discovered ski school. Ski school met on the bunny slope, which I considered to be a bit of an insult. But I went anyway, because I really needed the schooling. I discovered that not only could I stand up on skis, I could actually slide down the slope!

The problem with snow skiing is not sliding downhill, it's turning and stopping. My ski school instructor, named Ian or Lars or something like that, soon got to teaching me how to turn. He said, "turn right," and I would twitch and jerk right, but not turn. Ian or Lars said, "just look to the right," not understanding how that might help, I did it anyway. Sure enough, when I just looked to the right, I began to turn to the right. Same thing with turning left. "Just look to the left," Ian or Lars said. Bam, I went left. In fact, wherever I looked, that's the direction I went.

APPLICATION

Vision is looking down the road where God wants you to go. When you look there, guess what happens? You will naturally go there. Look down the road in the direction God wants you to go and you will go there, every time.

"If I have strayed from his pathway, or if my heart has lusted for what my eyes have seen, or if I am guilty of any other sin, then let someone else eat the crops I have planted. Let all that I have planted be uprooted" (Job 31:7-8, NLT).

The Light Of The Night

Prophecy Spiritual Blindness Vision

Contributed By: Fred Gates | Date Posted: 2013-05-08

Scripture: Isaiah 9:2

Author: Fred Gates
12

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Pressing Toward the Picturesque

Vision Perseverance Commitment

Contributed By: Jeff Burkhardt | Date Posted: 2012-07-24

Scripture: Proverbs 29:18 ; Philippians 3:14

Author: Jeff Burkhardt
8

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Plant People

Vision Love (Divine) Influence

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2012-07-19

Scripture: 1 John 4:7 ; 1 John 4:16

Author: unknown
11

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Blurry Vision

Spiritual Blindness God's Power Vision

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2012-03-31

Scripture: Ephesians 1:18 ; Ephesians 1:19

Author: Editors, NELSON’S ANNUAL
3

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Unanimous Disagreement

Vision Risk Victory

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2012-01-20

Scripture: Proverbs 28:1

Author: Illustration Exchange
4

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Seeing Jesus

Seeker Vision Self-deceived

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2011-12-25

Scripture: Proverbs 8:17

Author: Illustration Exchange
1

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Blinded by the Ordinary

Vision Spiritual Blindness Recognition

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2011-08-25

Scripture: Psalms 119:18

Author: Pastor James R. Noland
9

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