Many years before Jesus preached His famous Sermon on
the Mount, Moses had led the children of Israel to the foot of the mountain of
God. They waited while Moses hiked up
that hill to receive the law of God (the Ten Commandments).
All alone, Moses communed with God; but he couldn't see
God! He plead; Let me see you, God. But the Lord said, No; no human can look upon
the face of God and live. You couldn't
take it, Moses. But stand over there in
the cleft of that rock; I'll pass by while you cover your eyes. When I've passed you'll catch a glimpse of my
glory.
What Moses wanted we all want; we express it
differently. We say we want to know the secrets
of life or we want to know our destiny.
Scientists work to uncover the mystery of our beginnings. It all comes down to the inner desire of
human beings to see God; we want to know our Creator. We want to know what He is like; we want to
know what makes us part of Him.
There is something inside all of us that needs
assurance that all is well between the God who made us, and our own souls. Man has always sought this, and nothing but a
genuine encounter with God will satisfy this need. That’s why Moses went to the burning bush. This is why the account of Jesus on the Mount
of Transfiguration endures to this day. The
praise of man, perfect health and wealth, or any power in the universe will not
take the place of really knowing God.
Many hundreds of years after Moses, Jesus and His
disciples gathered on the mountain. He
pointed the way to this encounter with God.
BUT!
There was something offered that day for which nobody
bargained; when Jesus said, see God, His word meant much more than just a
casual sighting. Jesus said, optomai, which
means to gaze, wide-eyed, intensely, comprehending. Jesus told the disciples on that mountain
that they would see and understand and become friends with God.
Our Lord promised seeing God this way and He revealed the way. He said seeing, or knowing God follows cleansing
of the heart. In Greek “heart” is kardia;
in Latin cor, meaning center. Jesus taught that a totally cleansed center of
a person's being was the way to an encounter with God.
J.B. Phillips translates this beatitude: Happy are the utterly sincere, for they will
see God. The Greeks used this word to
describe wine that had been filtered to remove impurities; unadulterated.
Have you ever felt that clean?
The apostle John was at the Mount
of Transfiguration that day. Later,
after the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus – after decades of
reflection and walking with Christ in success and failure, weakness and
strength, John wrote down the key to it all when it comes to seeing God.
But if we
confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all wickedness. 1
John 1:9 (NLT)
This isn’t just how to feel
clean; this is what makes you every bit clean before God. To open your life to God, open your “heart”
and all that you are at the center of everything that makes you who you are, is
to make the life of God open to your heart.
And that’s what your heart has been longing-for.
For You, Today…
Have you seen God lately?
That mountain isn’t far away. In fact it’s anywhere you are, when, in your
heart you take up the kneeling position towards God.
His cleansing isn’t far away, or at the end of some
great quest; it is as near as your heart and lips.
The next step isn’t a step at all…just kneel before
Him; offer Him your heart.
Give Him you!
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