Open Our Eyes And Hearts

September 12

“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death,” Revelation 21:8.

It is difficult to reconcile the fact that all men have an opportunity to be forgiven and made righteous by the blood of the Lamb. There is something in the heart of peaceable, ordinary people who disdain the thought of some of the vilest individuals coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And yet we know in the depth of our being that in God’s eyes we are no better than they are. While men see degrees of sin and while men adjust temporal punishments to suit the crime, in the eyes of God, all sin is abhorrent. When Jesus, battered and bleeding, hung on the cross, it was for the sin of the little white lie you told when you took a penny from your mother’s purse as well as for the sin of the vilest murderer.

The evil murderer makes the headlines, but the little thief who stole the penny also breaks God’s heart. We all stand in need of a Savior. “There is none righteous, no not one,” Romans 3:10, and, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23, apply equally to all our race.

Romans 2:1-3 makes God’s position very clear in the matter: “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?”

How do we escape the trap we’ve set for ourselves? The trap that ensnares others in the depravity of their sin but makes excuse for our own sins and foibles? Our only route of escape is to see with God’s eyes. Our only hope to attain full forgiveness and not mere perfunctory assent to our culpability is to bow before our Holy God and ask Him to bathe us afresh in the cleansing blood of our Savior.

We must ask Him to give us a glimpse of Him—“high and lifted up and His train fills the Temple,” Isaiah 6:1; we must ask Him to let us see our Lord Jesus on the cross, brutalized for MY sins (see Isaiah 53:5); we must ask Him to reveal to us the Christ of Revelation 19:12, 13 “His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.…”

If we see ourselves as we are, “conceived in sin,” Psalm 51:5, and see Him as He is, we will fall on our face in humble thanksgiving and praise for the deliverance Jesus has supplied to us, and we will be eternally turned away from the great calamity that awaits the unrepentant sinner for eternity.

Oh, Lord Jesus, open our eyes to see, and open our hearts to receive You, so that none may perish but that all might come to repentance according to II Peter 3:9.