As we follow along with the beatitudes that Jesus spoke to us we have come to this one found in Matthew’s Gospel 5:8 “God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.”
So to see God, and experience the blessing of God we should then change the way we act. When I see this and think about it my first impression can be to just make sure I act right. But what does act right mean?
Today I would like to do a little Bible study and see if it will help guide us to an answer. In the book of Galations Paul writes this 5:16-18 “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.”
Paul is helping us understand that there are only two forces that can guide our lives or better yet inspire us in all that we do. We will driven to act out what our hearts give us for inspriation. Our hearts are filled and guided by one of two camps. We will be inspired by either our sinful nature that we were given by the sin of Adam or we will be inspired by the promptings of God as in the Holy Spirit.
All of our actions, whether we are conscious of it or not, come from our heart. You may have noticed by now that when you try to just gut it out and make good choices it usually doesnt last very long. Trying to just do good things all the time is like having an open box of girl scout cookies laying on the table. At some point you are going to have one. The real fact is you will end up having the whole box and not just one. I know this becasue a friend told me about it.
Let’s get back to the top. To see God is a blessing brought on by a pure heart and a pure heart is brought on by listening to the Holy Spirit and blessings to us and others will show up in the form of goodness. The goodness that can only come from God and will be washed over us and we will in turn wash it over others. So if you want to do good, pay attention first to what and who you are listening to. When I was younger my mother would remind me “garbage in, garbage out.” and she was right.
So far we have seen the beatittudes play out in the fruit of the Spirit in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and now goodness. In essence, as we sit at the table of life, let’s grab for a carrot instead of that box of girl scout cookies and see how that changes our lives, relationships, and jobs.
Have a great day and pay attention to goodness. It will change your life!
ETHOS 4 LIFE 