Matthew 5:8
Blessed Are the Pure in Heart, For They Will See God
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Matthew 6:21
Where Your Treasure is, Is Where Your Heart Will Be
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 13:13-14
Trying to See God and Jesus
13 This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
Job 23:8-9
Looking for God
8 “But if I go to the east, he is not there;
if I go to the west, I do not find him.
9 When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.
Matthew 22:36-40
Love God and Love Neighbor
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
2 Corinthians 5:6-8
Believers Walk By Faith and Not by Sight
6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
Acts 17:24-28
God is Near Us
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
1 Samuel 16:7
God and the Heart
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Jesus said blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God...And He adds where your treasure is and what you treasure, there your heart will be also...
And this relates to the question of seeking God and looking for Him...The question of looking for God has been around for quite some time...When Job went looking for God, he searched north, south, east, and west and could not find Him...God very often seems to hide as Job discussed...And even though Job could not find God, God was watching Job all the while...God was watching how far the evil one was taking his liberties at harming and making Job suffer and suffer...
It seems that the Spirit of God cannot be seen, but is around us and hovering near us all the time...It seems that the God, Jesus, and the Spirit are very, very subtle, and not obvious most of the time, unless we are very quiet and are really trying to listen to the Holy Spirit...It seems that Spirit is not seen very often at all...I think Job would have told us about his different Spiritual experiences, if he had had many, because we do have quite a bit of dialogue from Job...And we know Job wanted God’s Presence in his suffering...He did want God to be seen and heard from and to answer his questions...He wanted to ask and see God in his time of his troubles...Job was hurting...And Job for the longest of times, did not see or feel God...God, to him, remained absent...
Even Jesus seemed to come and go with those He interacted with...For example, when Jesus healed the blind man, and the now seeing blind man was being questioned hard by the local religious officials, Jesus had slipped away...It seems we only get glimpses and slices of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit...And to us many times they are absent...
Actually seeing God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit seems to be done in Their way completely...It is Their modus operandi...And at the same time They are always there watching us, and not with any force or by being obvious and front and centered to us...And They seem They do not want to be seen...Jesus had healed the blind man, and he was cured of his blindness...They come and go and slip away at the time of Their choosing...
In trying to understand Their Ways and seeing Them, love and the heart must be factored in...It seems that our love for others cannot be seen...It is hard to look at a person and really know they are in love with their family and friends, most of the time...God has chosen when He wants to be seen and heard...He chose to be close and with Abraham...He chose to be with Moses...He chose to be with the Prophets...He was with Jesus...And He chooses the times that we are aware of Him being near and with us...He chose the time to be with Job...But even though we might think He is absent or away, He is near...God works is such a subtle and compassionate way that we curious want to seek Him and perhaps our being curious or searching for meaning or purpose, we will reach out for Him and find Him...He is not far from any one of us...
God does not look at the things people look at...He does not think like a person would think...People look at the outward appearance and often draw their opinions and beliefs (from that appearance), but the Lord looks at the heart...
God is LOVE...And God may choose that the Way to see and feel and hear His Presence is through this conduit of LOVE...Maybe instead of direct seeing Him and our direct hearing Him is not the conduit that He normally uses...As we discuss and try to define love, it is difficult...We know that we love our parents, our spouses, and our children...Yet, how do we explain this love for them to others...Some people stay together with their spouse and families, and there is little love, yet we might be fooled that love exists in this dysfunctional family, by only looking with our eyes...So love is very difficult to explain and to see with the human eye, and since God is LOVE and love is relationship driven, we must believe that God is relationship driven by love and maybe less with sight and our eyes...
Jesus says blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God...And where our treasures are that is where our hearts will be...And what we treasure, is where we and our hearts will be...So God might be found better when we are looking for Him with our heart...The heart seems to be the center of our Spiritual Center...
God and His Spirit, and His Son are Spiritual and found in faith...They are found in the sacred and holy...They are found in grace...They are found in forgiveness...They are found in love...They are found in the heart...They are found in Truth...These different things of faith, the sacred and holy, grace, forgiveness, love, the heart, and the Truth are all hard things to see...It takes faith to see the Spirit...
Faith and Love are very closely related...These two things we cannot see...We see this when Jesus gives us the Great Commandment...Jesus forever links our love with God with the love for our neighbor...So maybe we need to look for love and for God with our hearts and our souls...Perhaps love and loving Him and having a relationship with Him is the best way to look for Him...Listen to your heart...Walking and looking for God with our eyes maybe more difficult than looking for Him with a loving heart...For we are to walk by faith, and not by sight...