Do You Have Jesus' Eyes?

“Do you see this woman?”
- Jesus to Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:44 )

The sight before his eyes was too much to take in. A notorious sinful woman was anointing Jesus with oil. Simon the Pharisee could not help but pass judgment both on Christ and the woman.

Jesus’ pointed question revealed Simon’s self-righteous spirit. “Do you see this woman?” Practically, He said, “Are we looking at the same woman?” and then gave a list of reasons why the sinful woman was actually in a better position spiritually than Simon!

Oh, Simon had all the religious rules down, but the sinful woman had come to Christ in true worship and devotion. Jesus saw her heart.

We cannot see into people’s hearts. But having eyes like Jesus will at least cause us to not judge others based solely upon what they wear or where they’ve been or what they’ve done.

He asks us pointedly, “Do you see them?” Do we see the lost the way that Jesus sees them? We can easily look at an unsaved person who has come to church and reflect on all their apparent unrighteousness, but Jesus looks at the same person and sees someone who has come to worship. We look at the way a person worships and may consider it strange and distracting, but Jesus sees this woman’s tears flowing down onto his feet, tears coming from a sincere heart.

Today Christ asks us, “Do you see that person the way I do? Do you realize that I died for them too?” When you see a neighbor trapped in a life of sin, what is your reaction? Does your heart fill with compassion because they are like “sheep without a shepherd” as did Jesus’ heart?

As followers of Christ, our prayer should be that He would give us His eyes, those eyes that pierce through the hardened heart, eyes that see the good beyond the sin’s ugly stain, eyes that see the life broken and ruined by iniquity and the restoration brought by an ugly cross. Ultimately, it’s the cross of Christ that shifts our focus and changes our vision.

written by Trevin Wax © 2009 Kingdom People blog