Your Eyes

The other day Proverbs 27:19-21 caught my eye.  It said, “As in water face reveals face, so a man’s heart reveals the man.  Hell and Destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.  The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, and a man is valued by what others say about him.”  I think all of these verses go together.  Our heart reveals the essence of who we are.  It is able to show our depth.  We may be able to fool people for a while, but the truth always comes out.  Many times our down fall is caused by our eyes.  Because they are never satisfied, our eyes can cause us to lust, covet, create false idols, etc.  God gave us these eyes so that we might desire Him and that He could reveal His beauty through His creation to us.  But because of sin, our eyes have become distorted.  Our character is what defines us; it will make us who we are and people will be able to know if we are true or not.   We should desire a good name.  Our name is who we are, the essence of our being.  Our name is going to be how others remember us.   How do you want to be remembered?  You are precious in God’s sight no matter what you’ve done.  1 Corinthians 6 illustrates this love.  In verses 9 and 10 Paul writes, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived.  Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor catamites, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God.”  That doesn’t make it sound like you or anyone else is good enough for God’s love and especially His grace.  Pretty much all of these things are caused by our eyes not being satisfied and us surrendering to the will of our flesh rather than the will of our spirit.  But where God’s love does come in is in the following verse, “And such were some of you.  But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”  What Paul is saying is that some of the people he was writing to were the people from verses 9 and 10, but God washed them clean and made them new.  Never think that God cannot love you because of what you have done in your past.  We are all able to accept the grace God gave to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ no matter how unclean and unworthy we may think we are because through Christ’s blood we can be made clean.  There is no sin too great that it cannot be forgiven.  Being made clean is a simple way of saying we’ve been made pure.  Pure; that’s what we long for.  Purity is being made valid.  However, we often seek validity away from God and our eyes play an important role in search of validity away from God.  Only Christ can validate us, because of His resurrection.  Because Christ lives, we can be made pure and valid.  Only someone perfect could stand in for someone so unclean and justify a fallen and condemned people.  He loves us despite of our flaws and can forgive us no matter how “bad” we think we are.  That is true love.  Feel validated.  Never feel like you are “too bad” for God’s grace.  Remember some of the Corinthians fell into “the list” and God forgive them.  He can and will forgive you too.  Don’t let your eyes lead you astray; instead allow your eyes to gaze upon God's goodness.  Remember that your heart reveals the real you that cannot be covered up.  Even if you can fool everyone else in the world, you cannot fool yourself or the One who made you.  See your value.  Seek a good name.  Define your legacy by knowing you are made valid in Christ.