"Looking Shapes the Heart!"

One of the themes in recent years we have thought about was “Truth is unto godliness.” Godliness is totally based in the propitiated act of our Lord Jesus Christ and it can be experienced among Christians in their regular fellowships. One of the most demanding fertilizer to nourish godliness in us is ‘how we look at others?’ We need to have Christ like attitude and eyes of compassion to shape our heart, yes! Looking shapes the heart.

How looking shapes the heart is an art to understand. Christian living is graceful living and living with not just good ethics but it is enthusiastic Missional living. We get troubled by various circumstances of life, and that causes us to look at others with some pre-conceived thoughts. Those thoughts get nourished by the gossip that we entertain, it molds how we look and most of the times people (we) fail in this art of discerning. It is imperative to train ourselves in discernment. Hebrews 5:14 says, ‘But the solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.’ No doubt by looking at the matters and things we can improve the strength of our discernment. In other words, the thickness & the breadth of our godly look improve ‘look by look.’ We got to be patient in looking at others so that they can also look at us and know the strength of our godliness in Christ.  I’ve been impressed for life about what Mother Teresa once told about the people who opposed her building of leper’s colony, she said, “When they saw they understood!” How true it is that Love begins by sight and takes root look by look. 

We are redeemed community, we have been propitiated, our guilt has been taken care of and we are all new creatures in Christ Jesus (I Corinthians 5:17), We must understand that through our eyes we open our hearts for certain elements that are powerful to tempt us. These temptations can teardown our spirituality as if it has no thickness at all. In realistic-spiritual living, a look of deep compassion and a look of true selfless love can shape a Christian heart. We read a particular pattern in Scriptures, “When he (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without shepherd” Matthew 9:36. Further we read, ‘….a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him, He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine’ (Luke 10:33-34). Christ and the Samaritan can be two of the facts that we learn a pattern that teaches us first we are to “see”-“look”, and as a result it will cause “compassion” andwe will be able to act.

Christians are to be the selfless people, they are supposed to be living for others and unless they learn to look at people with Christ like manner they will never shape their hearts like Christ’s. We, Christians do have a tendency of looking away from hurting people and their needs. We do this and can give many reasons why we must do this. But we forget that our treasure is in heaven, since we disbelieve this profound truth we try to settle our own lives with huge self interest in order to make our lives more secure on our own. What a paradoxical living it can be!

Friends, here is a figurative suggestion: Can we move ourselves outside of self and fly way up high in the sky and from there look at yourself. That look will give us an idea of a place where we are at and the direction of where we are heading to. It would show us all the garbage that we are carrying along. The perspective of distance to cover and clarity & condition of the pathway upon, which we are treading will also become clear to us. All this is figurative, but it is very real if we can do it. I would suggest the same act for looking at others; if we move out of our self-interests and take a lovely look at the interests of fellow Christians, we will certainly know their needs, we will understand what it means to be in their situation and we will have compassion for others. It will teach us how to cherish others whom we say we love. Our Lord was in love with us, he cherished us and always looked at us. He had compassion for us from the beginning, we read in Exodus 3:7, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt… and I am concerned about their suffering.”

 Our eyes are wonderful creation of God; they are beautiful, they tell us the truth about someone when that someone looks at us, whether they heat us or they are in love with us, our eyes also tell the truth about us to others. Perhaps this is why Jesus warns us so vehemently about misusing our eyes… ‘if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away,’ says he, (Matthew 5:29). Eyes beautifully speak the truth unto godliness. Yes, loving look shapes loving heart like Christ. Have you ever prayed that God gives you eyes like Christ? I would take liberty here to say, that Jesus’ eyes were God’s eyes that looked at his people and our eyes are to be Jesus’ eyes so that we can look at His people with patience and compassion. God bless! Amen.