What do you want?
A few Sundays ago at church we were singing “open the eyes of my heart Lord (repeat)…I want to see you.” It was one of those songs that ive sang, I don’t know, maybe a hundred times but for some reason on #101 I contemplated the lyrics. Since Jesus ascended 2000 years ago…how exactly do we do this?
In my Bible reading right now I’m studying the life of David and ive noticed that he had both “prophets” and “seers” in his life; e.g. Nathan the prophet (2 Sam 7:2-5) and Gad the “Seer” (2 Sam 24:11-12). What’s the difference? A prophet is a mouthpiece of God who declares and reveals God whereas a “seer” sees God … primarily through visions, dreams. All seers are prophets but, interestingly, not vice versa.
During the Modern era many Christian leaders reduced God to a purely rational and logical explanation. Disclaimer: No doubt, the Word of God unfolds to the human mind in a rational manner…yet, the Scriptures themselves are God – breathed…not sure exactly how scientific and rational that is. Its amazing to me that Moses can wander the same desert for 40 yrs, possibly by the same bush countless times but then one day God shows up in that normaly ordinary bush but then one day he “sees” a burning bush? How can we begin to see more of God? ...in the ordinary?
I think the songwriter is right. It begins in the heart. Jesus Himself said, “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Mt. 5:8). I haven’t completely exegeted this but a cursory reading seems to imply that a pure heart is a prereq for this. Thus the opposite would mean, if we're not seeing God then maybe we have impure hearts. Thus, while a person can have a lot of head knowledge and info about God we cannot really see Him if we have impure hearts. What's impure? You know. The Holy Spirit convicts you every time about it. 2ndly, I think that its through asking and expecting to see God. Ps 5:3 says, “In the morning, I will make my prayers to you and eagerly Watch.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” (said Jesus) and the blind man said to Him, “Rabboni, I want to regain my sight” (Mk. 10:51). What do you want?
posted by Bobby at 11:34 AM
9 Comments:
Double B, I'm gonna have to go anon this tme but want to say that was incredibly convicting to me and something I needed to be reminded of today. Thank you.
12:11 PM
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1:38 PM
THANK YOU SO MUCH for posting this! You have no idea how much I needed this information today, and it fits right along with my quiet/study times this week! Thank you, thank you, thank you, and I will have some questions for you at a later time.
God bless, brother!
3:15 PM
good stuff B. just so you know, i'm often still thinking on your most recent posts and youre already on to something else. youre always insightful in so many ways but this was, for real, one of my favorites :)
9:39 PM
B - I am so with you. There's nothing I was more than to "see" and "hear". Peter Greig said some incredible things about this very subject last saturday. I posted notes on my Living Invisibly blog for my friends that weren't there.
Thanks for this post...
10:56 AM
"I think the songwriter is right. It begins in the heart. Jesus Himself said, “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Mt. 5:8). I haven’t completely exegeted this but a cursory reading seems to imply that a pure heart is a prereq for this. Thus the opposite would mean, if we're not seeing God then maybe we have impure hearts. Thus, while a person can have a lot of head knowledge and info about God we cannot really see Him if we have impure hearts. What's impure? You know. The Holy Spirit convicts you every time about it."
One careful addition to make to this statement would be that the notion of one's "purity of heart" does not include legalistic navel-gazing in response to the Spirit's conviction of sin.
Purity from a scriptural perspective implies the direction one's heart is pointed, or a "heart attitude" in the midst of one's weakness. God lives outside of time and, as such, declared us "pure" at the moment of our salvation for all time, and this in spite of the fact that He was aware of each time we would rebel against Him as believers.
We sin many times a day in ways we're unaware of, and are therefore unable to call up each and every sin to consciously confess them all. This human condition doesn't jeopardize our being viewed as pure before God, since it's Christ's righteousness and purity which is impuned and not our own. Every Christian knows what it is to experience days, months, or even years of cold indifference toward God, who graciously steers us, at some point and through various means, back to a sense of our constant need of Him. This "redirection of our hearts" is at the root of what I believe you're driving at.
Not to split hairs at all, but I believe more than semantics are at stake re. the subject at hand since many believers err in assuming that we're saved by grace through faith, but unless we are able to work hard enough to overcome our weakness in this life, the fellowship and grace of God will be removed from us at some juncture. In a nutshell, the Bible teaches (Romans, for one, in too many passages to list) that Christians are prone to run from God, but that in His grace, He goes nowhere.
11:01 PM
B, youre the only blog i know of where the comments are longer than your post ;)
6:27 AM
Bobby, Jim here. So, when are you going to myspace or are we going to have to create an imposter site for you again LOL. Man, im loving the way you think because you always give me something to think about. and youre the only pastor i know of that can teach about the beatitudes and then invite us to go see ghost rider afterwards. see you Friday.
2:13 PM
I don't know, I like well crafted responses that indicate that someone has a brain, even if they're longer than two sentences....posters such as W Conner and others are always interesting and provide an insightful balance to blogs...
10:32 PM
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