The Blessing of Sight

This is a post from one of my favorite blogs that is no longer on the web. It is a post that deals with the subject of how God sometimes opens our eyes to the awefulness of our sins when we are shutting them on purpose. But it is also about God's rich mercy that is there to comfort and forgive us when we repent.

The Blessing of Sight

You’ve just truly seen yourself for the first time and now you’re scared. For years you have lived in the bubble of your own religious pretense, presumption and play acting, but now the mask has been taken from you and you tremble at what you’ve been shown.

For there lying conspicuously in front of you, what you had ignored so many times before, is a passage of God’s truth that now turns your heart to melted wax. Like a melted, snuffed candle you feel as if the life and flame has gone out from within you and now you think yourself as a grotesque blob of useless smoldering wax. What once was brushed aside by a mental wave of the hand, now has you terrified. You are desperate, anxious and near total despair. Perhaps it was the infamous Hebrews 6:4-6 or Hebrews 10:26-28 that struck your pride down. Maybe an Old Testament passage kindled your guilt and gave you glimmers of how past sins that had gone unnoticed and untended for so many years. It doesn't matter. Now you've been brought low. Now you realize your own sin, and you feel the weight of the deep offenses you’ve piled upon yourself and before the Lord.

Regardless of which dagger of the Living God’s truth struck and pierced your heart, you still think: "What need is there for me to stand before God to face his judgment? His wrath is already on me. His angry eyes are fixed on my unrepentant, bold, unabashed sin."

But even in his anger there is hope, much hope. In fact, for quite possibly the very first time in your life, there is true hope for you. Or is it that you have forgotten what the Word of God says? Have you not remembered that the God of All Creation is a God is One that brings forth the greatest good from the greatest sorrow for all who call upon him? Remember the story of Esther and how near the Jews were to annihilation at the hands of wicked Haman? Remember how the Israelites were pinned between the sea and a charging, well-armed Egyptian army? Remember the more than 185,000 Assyrians that were at Jerusalem’s gates? What about Jonah defying God, yet having a great work performed through his preaching after he was spared? What about the utterly depraved Ninevehites who heard Jonah’s preaching and repented? How about a murderous Paul being turned from his madness - when he didn’t even ask for it?

Now maybe you think: “That’s all well and good for a child of God, but I no longer think that God will accept me. I am as Esau. I am as Judas, once he saw his sin. I am like the Israelite put out of the camp or to be stoned to death for his offense and blasphemy. I don’t believe that I can repent and I don't believe that God will allow me to repent.”

Ah, but you see the truth. You see that to continue unrepentant is to sign your own spiritual death warrant. You see that your offenses before God is the thing to be sorrowful over. You now understand that you’ve offended God and that you continue to offend God. The question is not whether you see your guilt as a legitimate problem, the question now is what you are going to do about it?

Will you go the way of Judas, take matters into your own hands, and kill yourself in unbelief? Will go back to sinning, resolved to your presumed 'fate', and continue to live unrepentant like Cain and Esau? Or will your sorrow and guilt drive you to seek to Christ and trust in his promises for salvation. Remember Jesus said that those who seek find. Those who ask, receive. Those who knock are let in the door. So do these things and plead for God’s mercy, ask for repentance from him, and if you can’t find it in your heart now, pray for it and expect to find his grace.

Sight is a rare gift. To see God’s truth is a great blessing that far too often is not cherished and is taken for granted. To have sight of the truth is to have a measure of God's grace in your heart.

And the Spirit of God will work a heart to fear its separation from the truth in order to bring it back to conformity to God’s will. He will use the sight of your sin to turn you from your ways.

To that end, do not look upon anxiety or fear as a great curse, but as a blessing that God has not given up on you. He is prompting you to return to him to find the grace and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ and to show you that the melted wax of your heart does not mean that the light of Christ’s love has extinguished. It just means that he is preparing the ground for your return and for your receipt of his love and truth.

"If we are faithless,
he will remain faithful,
for he cannot disown himself" - 2 Timothy 2:13

(Some may recognize this post as it was linked to a lot, but I am leaving the author's name out because I can't contact him to see if it's ok to put on here.)