I am a very visual person so when I am praying I rarely have difficulty visualizing Jesus sitting next to me or gazing into His eyes or seeing Him upon the cross. These become very intimate conversations and I rely on these communications to help me every day. However, there is another time I see God/Jesus/Holy Spirit that I feel is vitally important in my faith and my understanding of God.
It is tied directly into the Ten Commandments and it affects how I try to live by those commandments. The commandments deal with loving God, others and ourselves and how to do that. Also, Jesus gives us the greatest commandments which are about loving God, ourselves and others.
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:36-40 NIV).
Because we are created in the image of God we can see God in others. We can see God in what other people do, say and in how they respond to the people and events in their lives. I can hear you responding to this with something to the effect of “I know this person who is so….that there is no way I could ever see God in him/her.” To that I respond, “Look again. Look beyond the bravado, the fears, the tears, the anger, the walls (things like glasses, coats, being funny or doing things to get attention). Look beyond the circumstances of your relationship and see them as they are, beautifully made.
Consider how that person sees you and that they may be treating you in a negative manner because of how they perceive your views. When you can see someone and their fears and ease them, when you can cure or comfort the sick of mind, body and spirit, when you can let yourself be yourself and love the unloved and not only see the good in others but bring it out of them, then you will have begun to see what is the true essence and being of God in this world.
But that is not all we are called to love-Loving Self…for me this is the most difficult and challenging concept. To see God in myself is something I rarely look for and consequently rarely see. I think this is true for most people. We hide or stand or are sheltered behind things, positions, ideals, dreams, actions or acts. We let our identities that we show to others become intricately intertwined with our self perceptions and that can block the real and important view of God and His beauty in us. Sometimes recognizing God in your self is even more difficult than seeing it in others but it too is vitally important because it is how we love ourselves that forms the basis of how we love others.
Therefore, I challenge you to look in the mirror and see the good God has invested in you and I challenge you to share that with one other person. Share it here if you like. Then I challenge you to see the good in the next person you meet and to affirm and acknowledge to them that very thing you see.
Open the eyes of those you meet to the goodness that God has created in them and open your eyes and see God working in you. In other words, in the next person you meet-greet Jesus in them.
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