Matthew 5:8 (KJV) Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
“So what are your plans for the day?”
Those words rang in my ears early in the morning as my beautiful wife patiently waited for the answer. “Huh? I uh…. hadn’t thought about it.” Now in my defense it was 5:15 am and I was in the shower trying to wash the sleepy from my mind. But that question started the thinking process and led me to this meditation. Do we make plans to be with God during the day?
So often we start our day and begin the business of this life. We spend time grooming our bodies, feeding our bodies, talking with our spouse, loving the children, and organizing our work, but do we purposefully plan our communion with the Father? If being pure in heart corresponds to having a “single eye”, we must cultivate our relationship with Jesus. That means loving Him on purpose and with purpose.
There are many things competing for our time and affections. We cannot take for granted that our love will just prosper. In recent years there have been many proponents of “date nights” with your spouse. This is a perfect example of loving on purpose. Smart couples will not relegate their relationship to just one night a week but will schedule time every day to actively seek the heart of their love. Then that couple must defend that time against the thieves that try to steal their attention and affections.
So it is with Jesus. He is never turned away from us. But far too often “He stands at the door and knocks.” We have not defended our time with Him. Life and all its urgent needs have distracted us from the lover of our souls and we have allowed the love that once burned in our hearts to grow cold. We still love Him we just don’t have time for Him and we find ourselves empty.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall be filled. Today, let’s make that something we do on purpose.
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I find that if I turn problems into Praise, annoyances into adoration I communicate with God a lot during the day. That doesn’t mean my life is filled with problems and things that annoy me but because God has given my wife her dream job-stay at home mom, so I need to work 10+ hours a day. The longer I am at work the more problems and stresses come my way. If I catch myself before complaining about my job and Praise God that I have a job and millions would love to have my “problems” and “stresses” at a job, my stress leaves. If my car is acting up and I get annoyed I turn that into Praise and thank God I have a car to annoy me.
ReplyDeleteI find a handful of times throughout my day to go for a walk. This generally is my planned time with God. As soon as I begin to thank and praise him for who he is I instantly feel his presence. It’s amazing that you don’t have to just feel his presence while at church or even at home where there are 2 or more gathered in his name. You can be by yourself in an empty hallway or sidewalk and feel his presence.
The most important thing to remember about our salvation is that even “saved” people won’t make it into Heaven. We won’t get in my which religion or sect we belong to, which local church we are a member of, but based on our personal relationship we God. Millions will say “We cast out demons in your name, healed the sick, raised the dead, performed miracles.” Clearly they were saved since you can only do those things with the Holy Spirit and Blood of Christ inside of you but at one point they lost their way. Yes, we can backslide while being in church and even working for him. God won’t call these people miracle workers and welcome them into Heaven. He will call them iniquity workers and cast them out because he didn’t know them.
We can spend our lives working for him without knowing him. Lazarus’s sister Mary was troubled because she was working for Jesus while Martha was fellowshipping with him but Jesus said that Martha had it right. She was doing the better part. Yes we need works to prove our faith. We need to use and invest our talents, but our relationship is most important. That is what gets us into Heaven.