In the Eyes part 5
Here's what humanity seems to think: I'm a dirty sinner and there's no way God (or anyone else for that matter) could possibly love me until and unless I clean up my act. It's the plot of all of those movies where the geeky girl takes her glasses off and then she's a knockout, right? We think we're ugly until we do something about it. What we don't seem to understand is that Jesus already did something about it. Unfortunately, even if we can grasp this idea--that it's what He did on the cross, not what we do with our own strength--we still seem to miss the point. We seem to think the cross made us something God could love. Like He couldn't look at us until He changed us. But He was looking at Noah BEFORE the cross. And Noah was looking back. That's why (and how) Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Look at Psalm 90:17, "And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it." Remember that tiny word with such big implications? LET. Let the beauty of the Lord be upon us. Guys... we were made in His image. As He is, so are we in this world. And that's the way it's always been. We just didn't know what His image (OUR image) was, because it was dark and we couldn't see it. Beauty is in the eyes right? What you see is what you be. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil mankind's Spiritual eyes closed and natural eyes opened. We moved into the dimension of duality. Appearance. Right and wrong. Good and evil. And on that day we surely died. But then, at the appointed time, Jesus came to give us life, and that more abundantly. He came to shine the light and open our eyes so that we could see clearly. Because what you see is what you be. He came to show us what the Father looks like, and He showed us the Father by showing us ourselves. By getting the veil, or the stone of the Law, or the sin consciousness, or ANYTHING that could cause seperation between Creator and creation, out of the way. By equipping and empowering us to look in the mirror with an unveiled face and see the glory of the Lord. And in seeing that glory in the mirror (in ourselves) we are changed into that same image from glory to glory. The truth about us--even though it was buried under all of the surface stuff--manifests from the inside-out. The beauty of the Lord is, and always has been, upon us. And now we can LET it be upon us. Now we can SEE it. The cross did NOT change us into something God could love. He always has and always will love us. What the cross "changed" us into was something that could RECEIVE God's love. Being filled with the Holy Spirit--our love receptor--is what allows us to know and believe God's love for us. And in knowing and believing it, we can receive it and release it. We can BE who we really are only when we KNOW who we really are. When we see it. When we see how beautiful HE is in us, then we see how beautiful WE are in Him! And that's when we can stop trying to be someone we're not--stop trying to "clean up our acts"--and we can simply rest in the truth about who we really are!