Jesus Eyes and Jesus Ears

One of the things that I strive to always do is look at others throught the eyes of Jesus and listen to what they say with His ears.  Here's why.  When I look at others without my Jesus eyes, I tend to notice their faults instead of their gifts.  When I listen to what others say without my Jesus ears, I tend to hear only what comes out of their mouth instead of hearing what is coming out of their heart.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that we should always overlook or ignore things that others do to hurt us or not hold others accountable for their actions.  What I am saying is that we need to remember that a person is not made up of just his/her bad choices.  When Jesus looks at us, He looks right past our imperfections and straight into our hearts.  He sees something good because He was there at creation, and He knows that we are good.  My husband says that I am naive.  He thinks that I let people walk all over me.  Maybe according to the standards of the world I am too nice, but the moment that I accepted Jesus Christ as my saviour I began to hold myself to a higher standard.  I wish that I could say that I have always stayed the course, but the truth is that I was out of church and away from God for a number of years.  Notice that I said that I was away from God.  He never left me.  I give thanks to Him for staying with me even when I wasn't serving Him.  I know that it was His hand that kept me safe and kept me out of trouble during a time in my life when I wasn't making very good choices.  It was the voice of the Holy Spirit calling me to draw near to God and find a church home over nine years ago.  It was the same voice that encouraged me to do more than just attend church.  It encouraged me to get involved and put my faith into action because the Bible tells us that faith without action is dead.  It is that same gentle Spirit that helps me to look past the drug addiction, the alcohol addiction, the pornography addiction, the laziness, the dishonesty, the adultry, the selfishness, the hatefullness that I see in people.  It reminds me that underneath all of that junk is a hurting soul that needs the healing touch of Jesus, and I might be the vessel that He has chosen to reach them.  I am humbled that He would choose me for such a task.  I don't think that I am worthy, but I know that as His vessel, it is He that will be doing all of the work if I will just agree to let Him work through me.  I was reminded of this one morning on my way to work.  Derwin Grey was on the radio talking about a conversation between Jesus and Gabriel.  He said that Gabriel was surprised to learn that Jesus' plan for spreading the good news about what He had done for us depended on a group of diciples that followed Him.  Gabriel asked if there was a better way to spread the word to the ends of the earth, and Jesus replied that he was counting on us.  Counting on me and you.  Can you believe that?  There are people all around us who are hurting in ways that we can't even imagine.  They pass by us and even speak to us every day.  We are often too busy to notice.  My prayer today is that God will bless us all with the eyes and ears of Jesus and that we will notice and reach out to the hurting people that He sends our way each day.