Jan 14, 2017

Follower of Jesus (43)

Blessed are the pure in heart

For they shall see God (4)

Matthew 5:8

Personal experience. For many centuries we have been warned to avoid taking our personal experience seriously. We are supposed to listen to the head knowledge of learned men (seldom women, who speak more from the personal experience side of events) so they, and they alone, can tell us what to believe and think. Yet Jesus had the temerity to say: “nor will people say ‘Here it is’ or There it is’, because the Kingdom of God is within”. (Luke 17:21). Now if the Kingdom of God, or heaven, is within, or as some translations state, in your midst, that can only be known by personal experience.

The whole message of Jesus is built around the call for personal transformation. We are being called to move beyond our egoic center to where the Kingdom of God is present, within us and without. Jesus made the non-sensical statement that heaven is right here, right now. We are living in heaven, but I certainly have not seen angels sitting on any white cloud playing harps. Obviously, my concept of Heaven needs some major modification to fit what Jesus called Heaven, or the Kingdom of God.

That is where personal transformation appears. To see the Kingdom of God, we have to see through the eyes of Jesus, who obviously saw God’s Kingdom wherever he was, everyday. His ideas on the Kingdom of God completely changes everything we thought the Kingdom of God was/is about. We always think about that Kingdom where we lie around, do nothing, just exist in material bliss, eat well, and just seem like we are in ‘fat city’.

Obviously, that is not how Jesus saw the Kingdom of God. To be pure in heart, as the beatitude states, we would see God, or we would, as Jesus states, see the Kingdom of God. What is Jesus saying? Jesus is stating that when we look at creation, with all the glory and pain involved, we are looking at the Kingdom of God as it truly is. The Kingdom of God consists of all the glory, all the shifts, all the pain, all the bliss, everything that we see around us, filled with the Face of God shining in Love.

Our task is to remove the blinders we have wrapped around our inner and outer eyes and see the glory of God is everything. Being pure in heart is to have the blinders removed, so that God is present to us in eternal Love, only Love. We have to learn to see God in all there is, that is, to see only Love as the core to everything that exists and everything that we comprehend.

That is, we are to experience that Kingdom of God in it’s very essence.

Meditation

Love Incarnate, I rest in Your warmth of Love that sustains me. I give myself I to your care, to comfort me when I am in distress. I surrender myself, knowing that You will hold me in Your Love at all times, keep me filled with Love and joy in Your Being. I ask that You open my heart and fill it with Love, so that I can be Your face in my small area of life. My gratitude overflows with joy and I ask only to be an outlet of Your Joy in life. I am immersed in the Kingdom of God, within and without, as I have come to see that all of creation is Your Kingdom in reality.