Beholding God

Scripture_Matthew 5:8
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 

Greetings: I pray that you are blessed and rejoicing. After a brief rest into this 2012, I am again reflecting on the beatitudes because each one speaks so much. On this pathway to happiness in the Lord, we are reminded that this teaching came after the Holy Spirit led  Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days while He fasted. At His weakest moments, the assaults of the adversary, Satan, came one after the other, but our Lord overcame by recalling and declaring the word of God. We are well into this New Year and no doubt, our faith will be tried and tested. We may be tempted to choose another way than the path the Lord has predestined for us. Sometimes in these times, it is difficult to see God’s hand, and we find it hard to see Him at all. This beatitude shares a little insight on seeing God as I share this with myself and let you in on the conversation. 

Meditation: Our heart is the center of our emotions, will and thoughts. The Lord says, blessed are the pure (clean, purged and made ready, free from mixture, unstained by guilt, corrupt desires, and sin) in heart. To be pure in heart means to be clean with the connotation of having been purged and made ready. I pondered that because no man has seen God, yet it is He who opens the eyes of our spirit to know Him. The Lord took our sin and guilt upon Himself on the cross. He does not intend us to carry it, but to trust that He is all sufficient to cleanse us and keep us. The sense of guilt deprives us of the rest Jesus died to give.   

The Lord says that those of us with a pure heart are blessed because we can see God. If our eye is single, meaning, our eyes are fixed on Christ, we will behold Him. When we behold Him, we become like Him according to the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:18…

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

How blessed we are indeed that we are changed into the same image of our Lord by His Spirit as we behold him with a pure heart. We make Him the object, person of our devotion, not merely for reasons of study to attain knowledge and the many benefits of having done so, but  because He is our God. When our eye is single, like doves’ eyes, undistracted by the temptations to seek Him with mixed motivations, we shall see Him.  David said in Psalm 57:17…

My heart is fixed O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.

Jumping ahead in the Matthew 5, verses 14 and 16:

v14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.

f16 Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

In Luke 11:33 in the parable Jesus speaks of the lighted candle, he says:

v33 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but in a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light.

v34The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, they whole body is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, the body is full of darkness.

Oftentimes we hear that they eye is the window to the soul. When we see Jesus, who is The Light of the world, our lives reflect that light and others will be drawn to the one we behold, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As one of my pastors often says and I paraphrase, When God said, ‘Let there be light,’ the light didn’t have to think about it. It just shined.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, I rejoice in your word and realize that you gave us yourself in these earthen clay vessels, that so easily are broken. Thank you for the privilege to behold you, to see you, to know you, and to love you. There are times when we need you to create in us a clean heart (Psalm 51:10) and renew a right spirit within us because distractions obscure our vision and we fall short of your glory. See if there be any wicked way within us that would cause your light in us to shine dimly. Please cleanse us by the precious fount of mercy at the cross. Thank you for the promise that you are so willing to wash us with clean water and give us a new heart and a new spirit within us (Ezekiel 36:25-27). It is ours for the asking when we confess that we need your help. We love you and thank you. In Jesus' name.

Eternally yours,

Amen.