"I see dead people"

Who can forget this line by Haley Joel Osment’s character in "The Sixth Sense"—a story about a troubled boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and an equally troubled child psychologist (Bruce Willis) who tries to help him. Well, guess what! I see dead people too—and so do you. They are standing behind you in line at Safeway, sitting in the cubicle next to yours at work, and even parked in the back pews of your church. They are dead in their sins (Eph. 2:1): deeply troubled people.

But unlike the Bruce Willis character [spoiler warning] who cannot help because he is one of the dead, we who are alive in Christ can see things other people can’t see. And we can hear too (John 10:27). Of course if you tell this to the ‘dead’ people, they will think you are crazy. But we who have been made alive with Christ (Eph. 2:5) have these supernatural powers—of seeing and hearing. Having “God’s eyes,” we see people and circumstances as God does.

But (paradoxically) to exercise these powers, you must be dead to this world—crucified with Christ. Only those who are dead to their own ideas, opinions and assumptions can really see and hear His. This is why Jesus spoke in parables: “I am using these stories to conceal everything about it from outsiders, so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled: `They see what I do, but they don't really see; they hear what I say, but they don't understand.” (Luke 8:10 NLT) So to us, Jesus says: “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?...He who has ears to hear [and eyes to see], let him hear [and see]" (Mark 8:18; Matt. 11:15).