Learning from the Holy Spirit

I am always amazed at how the Holy Spirit speaks to me and teaches me.

This morning, it was as I was wiping down the inside of the microwave. We still have house guests from Germany with us, and while the microwave appeared to be clean inside, still, I managed to find a spot or two at the back that I thought I would wipe down.

In the normal course of a normal day, I wouldn't even have noticed those small spots most likely. But because we have company who also use the microwave, I stood at the open door of the microwave for a moment longer than normal and tried to look at the interior of it with a more scrutinizing eye. And thus, I found the spots.

That's when the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said "That's what happens when you look at people with the eyes of God. They deserve more than that first impression, that casual glance. They deserve a discerning eye, God's eyes of love, with which to see both the good and the bad. You think you see it all with your own eyes, but you don't. You can't. Only with God's eyes, in the Spirit, will you see all that you need to see. And only then will you know how to respond with God's love."

What a wonderful teacher! The same Spirit of God that is teaching me, is the same Spirit of God that resided in Jesus who taught in the same way that the Spirit of God teaches: in ways that are so easy for us to understand. Truths that transcend what we know and understand, while at the same time being applied in ways that we CAN know and understand.

But to really look at someone with the eyes of God, takes time. We must spend time quietly observing, quietly asking the Lord for discernment and wisdom, and then quietly asking for the ability to love as He loves.

I remember a biographer of Andrew Murray (b. 1828-d.1917) who said that when Andrew looked at a person, Andrew's eyes squinted up and appeared to be looking so deeply and intensely into the eyes of the other fellow, as though he could tell just by looking at them, whether or not Jesus Christ was their Lord and Savior. Anyone knowing Andrew Murray, a teacher of how to surrender oneself completely to God, would have squirmed easily under such a stare, but not one who knew Jesus and knew how much Andrew himself knew Jesus. I think Andrew was putting into practice the gift of looking at others through God's eyes. And for him it worked. As it can for us if we will but take the time to do so.

After all, the commandment of Jesus to us is to love one another as God loved us:

John 13:34-35; Romans 12:10 and 13:8; Galatians 5:13; Ephesians 4"2; 1 Thessalonians 3:12; Hebrews 10:24; I Peter 1:22 and 3:8; 1 John 4:7 and 4:12.

According to the scriptures above, iIf we aren't serving one another, in honor preferring one another, having compassion one of another, being full of pity for one another, being courteous to each other, loving one another with a pure heart (no matter how unloveable they may appear to be) then we know nothing about the love of God, no matter what our words might say to the contrary. We need to check our own hearts and repent.

Ephesians 4:24 "…put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

With the "new man's" eyes of God's righteousness and true holiness, we should be able to see each other more clearly….as well as ourselves.