Hola!

¿Como estas? I hope everyone is ready for a yummy and grateful Thanksgiving celebration. Time sure is flying these days, huh? Before we know it, Christmas will be here… and then the New Year, 2010!

In the meantime, let us put on our Bible thinking caps and consider our faith in these busy days. For some time now, we have been looking at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In particular, I have been delighted to share with you some thoughts on the Beatitudes… the “Blessed are”’s.

The beatitude this week really gets down to brass tacks. Let’s concentrate on this:

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

With all the wonderful benefits of being one of God’s children, perhaps one of the most exciting ones would be getting to see God in heaven. Can you imagine looking face to face with Almighty and Eternal YHWH?! The Great I AM, Who Was and Is and Is To Come? After a lifetime of serving Him, you would finally get to see your Holy and invisible Creator.

The One who knows you best is God. God knew you before you were even conceived! He is the One who gave you life, who allowed you to grow in your mother’s womb and to be born, and who knew everything you would say and do from eternity past! He is the One who allows everything to happen to you that has happened (and will happen) to you and the One who has preserved your life all your days, and the One who knows the day and manner of your death.

If you are born again, God is the One who drew you to Himself, the One who called you out of the miry muck of sinful living, to be set apart unto Him for His glory. He is the One who caused the light of truth to shine on your conscience, enabling you to comprehend the love of Christ. Oh what wonderful lovingkindness has been shown to those who name the name of Christ… and to intimately see the One who is responsible for all of it is almost too much to fathom!

Yet, hear this… seeing God is serious business!

Exodus 33:20
“But,” He (God) said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see Me and live.”

1^st Samuel 6:19
And He (God) struck down some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked upon the ark of the Lord. He struck seventy of men of them, and the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great blow.

Isaiah 6:5
And I (Isaiah) said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips , and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Mark 5:6-7
And when he (a man with an unclean spirit) saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before Him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure You by God, do not torment me.”

Revelation 1:17-18
When I (Apostle John) saw Him (Jesus), I fell at His feet as though dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, and I am the first and last, and the living One. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”

There is just something frightening about being exposed to our very core, that holy men and demon-possessed men alike tremble before Almighty God. That something is sin! The evilness of sin is most comfortable in dark hidden places… and to have the fiery eyes of the Lord look upon you and your sin in judgment would be (and is) terrifying indeed.

Most people don’t want anything to do with acknowledging their sin and consequent guilt before God. Many people try to run away (escape) from it… by drinking, drugs, rationalization, good deeds, willful ignorance, self-delusion, religious ritual, self-afflicting sacrifice…etc. etc… I was one of those people, self-deluded by my ritualistic observances.

Boy, I was on my way to heaven until the Lord enabled me to see my sin for what it really was. And when I did, I was terrified! I saw my soul dangling over the pit of Hell. My self-delusion covered the reality that I was on my way to eternal damnation. Friends, don’t be deluded like I was!

Those who don’t try to escape but face the terrifying reality, and who repent and plead for God’s mercy and forgiveness, find that God is not willing that any should perish. The realization sets in that you were deathly sick and had need of a Physician. The Lord Almighty operates rescued sinners, performing heart surgery…

Ezekiel 11:19-20
And I (God) will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My rules and obey them. And they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

This new spirit is the indwelling Holy Spirit. This is why the Bible says that a believer’s body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1^st Corinthians 6:19). Wow! With God living inside of us, the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says…

Hebrews 10:19-22
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

A heart (mind/ conscience) sprinkled clean from evil is a pure heart. And only the pure in heart will see the smiling face of God in His loving and intimate fellowship!

Isaiah 1:18
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

**Comments/ questions/ testimonies/ objections most encouraged!

Dear Lord, thank you for this time to consider Your word and Your ways. May our thoughts, words, and deeds bring You glory… and glory to You alone. –Amen

Peace,
Jim