{"id":7082,"date":"2021-05-30T15:54:38","date_gmt":"2021-05-30T05:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=7082"},"modified":"2021-05-30T15:58:54","modified_gmt":"2021-05-30T05:58:54","slug":"staring-into-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/staring-into-the-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"Staring into the Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Staring into the Universe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Mourin Youssef<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Salome must have been one lucky woman. Imagine being able to\nwitness the birth of Christ. She, sometimes interpreted as the midwife of St\nMary, would have seen a sight to dream of. A beautiful, sweet baby swaddled and\nnestled, peaceful and undisturbed. Even if she was standing across the room,\nthe mere opening of His ethereal eyes could have penetrated the entire\natmosphere and melted her heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A physical description of the eyes of our Lord can only\nreally be found in the book of Revelation. You know\u2026 that book that people\noften fall asleep to during the apocalypse night prayers. It describes the eyes\nof the son of God in \u201cHis head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow,\nand His eyes like a flame of fire.\u201d (Revelation 1:14) A \u201cflame of fire\u201d St John\nthe beloved wrote. How amazing must it be to even catch a glimpse of these\nglorious eyes that can set our spirits and souls ablaze with a heavenly fire! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The eyes of God are mentioned much more frequently in the Bible in a spiritual sense. One of the most comforting and beautiful qualities of God is that He does not view the exterior of a man, \u201c\u2026For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.<\/em>\u201d (1 Samuel 16:7) We are often told to not \u2018judge a book by its cover\u2019 and to always make excuses for people, but how often do we really do this? How often has someone wronged us and we still view them with the same softness and love as Christ? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as He looks to that person with love, we must also try to do the same, otherwise, how can we possibly expect to be treated with the same mercy? In the same manner that God views someone else\u2019s heart, He views ours. It aches Him when He sees that we are holding a worthless grudge that weighs us down and diminishes that fire He sets in us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, why is it important for us to view others with the same eyes as God? \u201cFor we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.<\/em>\u201d (Ephesians 2:10) We were not formed to do the bare minimum\u2026 forgiving someone on the outside but harbouring feelings of resentment. Conversely, we were created to not only forgive but to take extreme measure to ensure the person we forgave feels loved. Otherwise, we cannot expect, nor can we experience or feel the love of Christ in a similar manner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing others through the loving eyes of Christ will give\nus countless daily opportunities to be more like Him. To be Him is to feel Him.\nIn this manner, when our time of judgement comes, we will not feel estranged or\nbewildered by the beauty that we will behold. Life in the eternal kingdom will\nbe an extension of the life we create for ourselves on Earth if we maintain\nthis effort to be as much like Christ as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what if someone doesn\u2019t live through the eyes of Christ? There is a greater and deeper displeasure for the one that views the world with hate as they will become a product of their own internal hatred. \u201cFor as he thinks in his heart, so is he<\/em>.\u201d (Proverbs 23:7) If we go about our days with a thick darkness clouding our eyes, we will never experience God\u2019s magnificence in our lives. A lot of the time we overlook it and can even refuse its presence. How often during our day does the Lord try to communicate with us? How often does His heart yearn for our attention? And yet, we are the ones that reject Him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another issue arises when we do less than the bare minimum. \u201cFor the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him<\/em>…\u201d (2 Chronicles 16:9) We are always under His observation. This might be a scary thing to think of. He sees our wickedness and all our flaws. He sees what others don\u2019t see. But this is not only a point of warning, our Lord cannot help but love us. He sees our sorrows and the desires of our heart and grants them to us if we pray fervently and with humility.  \u201cThe preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirits. Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.<\/em>\u201d (Proverbs 16:1-3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How wonderful\nwould it be to witness and experience the eyes of God? To witness them is to\nstare into the universe and to experience them is to be a mirror image of His\nlove. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut above\nall things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.\u201d (Colossians 3:14) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Staring into the Universe By Mourin Youssef Salome must have been one lucky woman. Imagine being able to witness the birth of Christ. She, sometimes interpreted as the midwife of St Mary, would have seen a sight to dream of. A beautiful, sweet baby swaddled and nestled, peaceful and undisturbed. Even if she was standing … Continue reading “Staring into the Universe”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7082"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7086,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7082\/revisions\/7086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}