Seeing

Matthew 5:8

What we see says a lot about who we are. Painters look at walls, English teachers notice poor punctuation (it's a job hazard!), and doctors diagnose in the grocery store. We see what we know.

We also see what we love. A birder will see a yellow billed magpie, and I'll see uh, a bird with, uh, feathers. A friend will see a person wearing Jimmy Louboutin heels, and I won't even realize that the same person has shoes on.

So it shouldn't surprise us that who we are shapes our capacity to see God. Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Matthew 5:8). This is not so much an arbitrary rule as it is a spiritual reality. Impure heart conditions such as pride, lust, selfishness, and hatred all block our view of God.

This might be a little discouraging; if we can't see God, how will we ever get over our sins? The texts proceeding Matthew 5:8 give us hope and direction. A pure heart comes when we recognize our spiritual poverty (5:3), mourn our condition (5:4), recognize who we really are (5:5), then hunger for something greater--God's righteousness(5:6).

The only difficult part of this whole scenario is recognizing our spiritual poverty. But even the difficulty of discovering our spiritual poverty is met by God.

He says, "You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see" (Revelations 3:17,18).

He provides the wealth for our poverty, the clothes for our shame, and the salve for our eyes--so we can see Him!

And what a blessing it is to see Him! "Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us" (Psalms 123:2).

What do we see when we look in his face? The God who chose us before we ever chose Him (John 15:16), the God whose loved us with an everlasting love (Jer.31:3), the God who is making a place for us in heaven (John 14:2). There is so much good of God that will be left unnoticed unless our hearts are pure.

Father, purify my heart that I might see you.