Looking at things with Christ’s eyes
Christ invites us to ‘come’ (Revelation 6:1, 3, 5, 7) - and look at
things through His eyes. With Him, we look at earth. With Him, we look
at heaven. Troubled world, tremendous worship - These are the things we
see when we look through the eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our world is
deeply troubled. Heaven’s worship is absolutely tremendous. Of all our
many ‘troubles’, the greatest is this: We are sinners, and none of us
‘can stand’ before ‘the face of Him who sits on the throne’. Our earthly
‘troubles’ are nothing compared with this! There is hope. There is a way
of ‘salvation’. We can be saved through ‘the blood of the Lamb’. If,
however, we turn from Him - ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world’- there will be no hope. We will face ‘the wrath of the Lamb’
(Revelation 4:16-17; 5:10, 14; John 1:29). Will you be saved - or lost?
Listening to God and speaking for God
‘The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I
may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary. He wakens me
morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught’
(Isaiah 50:4). We are to listen to God. We are to speak for God. We
cannot speak for God unless we are listening to Him. Before we can speak
for God, we must speak to Him. We must pray, ‘Speak, Lord, for Your
servant is listening’ (1 Samuel 3:9-10). Listening to God comes before
speaking for God. First, we wait on the Lord - ‘I waited patiently for
the Lord’. Then, we witness for the Lord - ‘He put a new song in my
mouth, a hymn of praise to our God’. Waiting on the Lord and witnessing
for Him, we will win others for Him - ‘Many will see and fear and put
their trust in the Lord’ (Psalm 40:1-3).
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
Looking to the Lord, we are ‘radiant.’ He has ‘delivered’ us. He has
‘saved’ us (Psalm 34:4-6). Rejoicing in God’s salvation, we say, ‘I will
bless the Lord at all times’ (Psalm 34:1). We call upon others to
worship the Lord with us - ‘O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt
His Name together!’ (Psalm 34:3). We invite them to trust in the Lord
and come to know the joy of His salvation - ‘O taste and see that the
Lord is good! Happy is the man who takes refuge in Him!’ (Psalm 34:8).
We encourage them to keep on hearing the Word of the Lord so that they
may learn to walk with God - ‘Come, O sons, listen to me, I will teach
you the fear of the Lord’ (Psalm 34:11). We seek to lead people on to
spiritual maturity. We say to them, ‘Depart from evil, and do good’,
praying that they will become ‘mature’, ‘trained by practice to know the
difference between good and evil’ (Psalm 34:14; Hebrews 5:14).
Our full enjoyment of eternal life is still to come.
Through faith in Jesus Christ, ‘the Son of God’, we receive ‘eternal
life’ (1 John 2:22-25; John 20:31). Our enjoyment of eternal life has
already begun - ‘we are God’s children now.’ Our full enjoyment of
eternal life is still to come: ‘It does not yet appear what we shall
be...’. We have begun to experience Christ’s victory: ‘The reason the
Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil’. We look
forward to our full enjoyment of His victory: ‘When He appears, we shall
be like Him...’ (1 John 3:2, 8). Some will try to ‘deceive’us. We must
keep our eyes on Christ - ‘He laid down His life for us’. We have
received His ‘love’. We must show His love - ‘Let us not love in word or
speech but in deed and in truth’ (1 John 3:7, 16, 18). Do you believe
in Christ? Live the life. Be a believer - in deed’!
We have begun to enjoy God’s blessing. Let’s share it with others.
Here, in Matthew 5:1-2, we have the introduction to ‘the Sermon on the
Mount’ (Matthew 5-7). Reference is made to both ‘the disciples’ and ‘the
crowds’. The disciples are taught with a view to becoming teachers of
the crowds. Peter learned from Christ and later he taught the crowds
(Acts 2:14-42). The Sermon on the Mount was heard by the crowds as well
as the disciples. Jesus spoke to the crowds. His ministry to the
disciples had a dual purpose. It was for their own spiritual
strengthening. It was training for the time when they would be entrusted
with the Lord's commission: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded
you’(Matthew 28:19-20). Do you read God’s Word solely for your own
benefit? Or, do we have an eye for ways in which we can learn to share
His Word with others?
‘The Beatitudes’ show us God’s way of
blessing. We might also describe them as the Be Attitudes, since they
show us what we are to be. Jesus teaches us that the way to happiness is
the way of holiness. The only alternative to the way of holiness is the
way of hypocrisy. There can be no true happiness when we are walking in
the way of hypocrisy. Holiness is to take shape in our lives - the
shape of Jesus Christ living in us. This is the truly happy life: the
Christ-centered life. We are not to live according to present
appearances. We are to live in the light of the future Reality of God's
heavenly Kingdom. Some of Jesus’later statements can be viewed as an
exploration of the meaning of the Beatitudes. The general principles
(Matthew 5:3-10) are to be applied personally: ‘Blessed are you...’
(Matthew 5:11-12). We are not only to read the Beatitudes. We are to
live them.
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