God alone is my judge. Not me.

Matthew 6:5-23

First, some personal thoughts: I feel oddly refreshed and and yet unsteady. I am home from a few days at the beach and preparing to head off to school at good old Bethinary (Bethany Theological Seminary). ;) While the time away was good, my family is waiting for sad news and it is a time of strange emotions, living each day one at a time, and transitioning to the fall schedule. In the midst of this, I have kept up my reading. However, instead of reading the verses whenever I had time, I felt compelled to take up starting the day with reading my daily verses. My Bible has been by my bed all night so that as soon as I awake, I can grab the book and read some WORDage. It has been good. Normally I start my day with a shower because I am NOT a morning person! The shower serves as a good way to awake my mind and soul the right way, with words of life swimming freshly around my brain, causing me to meditate on them and prepare for the day ahead.

It was a bit of a struggle connecting this week with many things floating around my brain, which caused me to get frustrated with my inability to "be spiritual" and flood guilt into my system. It seems that at such times it may help to review what God has recently done or said to us. Hindsight is helpful for those of us with short term memories so we had best use it.

I looked back at the words the Spirit has flung at me and I see ridiculous expectations about praying, and forgiving, and fasting, and ultimately storing up heavenly treasures rather than waste down here. For some reason I was unable to see the beauty of this when I first read them. Caedmon's Call helped me awake to the message in front of my nose.

Every spiritual act we do is for God alone. It is not for us to feel good, safe, or secure. It is not for attention, or pride, or fame, or comfort. It is for God alone. God alone judges our authenticity. Nobody else. No family member, or friend, or competitor, or follower, or stranger. Not even our self. We are in no place to judge our self and yet we do so quite frequently. We are to store up treasures in heaven by living for Jesus' glory alone. If our acts of obedient service and contrition and worship and discipline are not heavenly treasures, but earthly wastes, its time to wake up!

Our eyes are the lamps of our souls. Everywhere we look, we should see such that our vision bears witness to the love of God! For God's true beauty is ever before my eyes though I place things in front of it that demand my attention and service. They are mistaken and so are we when we do not immediately laugh at them and with our eyes, shine the lamp of truth upon them. Doing so, we expose them for what they are, temporary things, a mist fading before our eyes in the light of the majesty behind them.

Wherever you are reading this, STOP... Look around. God;s glory is practically smacking you in the face, so push the grubby earthly demand out of your way, and see Jesus. Then see him everywhere you go...