Through the Eyes of Jesus

Sometimes it seems to me everyone has ulterior motives, everyone is sinning in some way. Yet there are other times when all I can see is virtue and goodness — in the same people.

Today I see how Titus 1:15 has a bearing on my experience. It says, “To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.”

The only totally pure person is Jesus Christ. When He looks at me and anyone else who believes in Him, what does He see? Not our sinfulness, for He has covered it with His own blood. We are forgiven and clean in His sight. In contrast, the most wicked people see Christians as foul hypocrites with ulterior motives and impure lives.

Applying that to my tendency to see people two ways, I realize the problem is not with others but with me. If my heart is right, I will see people as Jesus does. Their sins will be under the blood, and even if I notice, I will be praying for them, not condemning them. If my heart is not right, then I will see people only in their fleshy, sinful nature.

Yikes, what an awful realization. A pure heart is not blind but tender and merciful, looking for goodness in others, but my heart is too often impure. I see that in how I get angry or frustrated with others instead of seeing them as people struggling with the same things as myself. What right do I have to become annoyed at anyone for ‘inconveniencing’ me by their failures. That is so unkind, and so unlike Jesus.

Any impurity in my own heart clearly indicates that I am not in the Spirit but in the flesh, controlled by my sin nature instead of the Lord. From that low vantage point I cannot see the true spirituality of others, only their sinful nature. It goes farther — when I’m filled with myself, I am selfish, picky, vindictive, critical, etc.

So when someone screws up and it brings out the worst in me, I’ve no right to be critical. Instead, I must be filled with the Spirit and take an entirely different view — looking at them and what they are doing through the eyes of Jesus.