100 Days on Jesus’ Sermon Mount (Day 7)

“Blessed are those whose thoughts are pure.
    They will see God.”

— Matthew 5:8 (GW)

Blessedness of heart translates into purity of thought. And those who think well tend most to know how God thinks – they ‘see’ God. Those who knew Jesus knew truth. They saw the truth in him. This was because their hearts had been purified by the repentance from their sins. Those who claimed faith in Christ because of the Father’s gift of grace learned that, in Jesus, was God.

Those who believe upon Christ have seen God?

Those who believe upon Christ will also see God.

They saw in Jesus reason for hope, and, because they believed, they were able to trust and obey; they took Jesus’ words to heart and, hence, were purified, because they agreed they needed cleansing. They will also see God in eternity. God will become for them an eternal King in eternity.

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When we allow God to purify our hearts we agree that the Lord will purge from us both the motive and agency of wrongdoing.

Then we begin to do things with a piqued conscience. We become more acute hearers of that still, silent voice in us that says, “Do this,” and “don’t do that.”

As soon as we begin to backslide, however, we hear his voice less, and though that might appear very comforting to have God’s Spirit back off, especially when we’re challenged, we are not served by thinking, acting, speaking, and doing in ignorance.

It could be argued convincingly that a believer, who is already a partaker in grace, is not perturbed by the Spirit’s challenge – that’s a test of a Christian’s heart: do we wish to obey?

We only ‘see’ God when we have been enlightened by truth. And those the truth enlightens become worshippers of God.

Those who earnestly seek God find truth; those who earnestly seek truth will ultimately find God.

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QUESTIONS in REVIEW:

1.     Do we need to believe first in order to see truth, or is it the other way around (see truth and then believe)?

2.     What place do our consciences have in us seeing truth? How do we improve our moral warehouses in conforming them to God’s truth?

3.     How do you find God’s Spirit speaking to you? It’s rare to hear some audible voice of God, but it is possible. How do you know it’s God’s ‘voice’ speaking?

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.