Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Matthew 5:8
The pure in heart are not those who have never sinned, but those whose desire for God has become the single organizing principle of their lives. As sight depends on the eye's clarity, so the vision of God depends on the heart's direction. A heart divided between God and the world cannot see Him, because it does not truly look for Him. Purity is not the absence of struggle but the presence of a unified intention--to want God above all else and to allow that want to shape everything else.
--Gregory of Nyssa, *On the Beatitudes*
No one sees God who does not first want to see God. And the wanting itself is a kind of seeing. The pure in heart have stopped looking for God as a means to something else--security, happiness, a better life--and have begun looking for God as the end. This promise is not about the afterlife, where there is a glimpse of God at the end of the road. It is an immediate promise: the pure in heart *shall* see God. They see Him now, in the faces of the poor, in the witness of creation, in the silence of their own souls. Purity of heart unmasks the world.
--Philip Yancey, *Rumors of Another World*
Irenaeus of Lyons, *Against Heresies*, circa 180 AD. Written to refute Gnostic teachings and defend the unity of Scripture and the goodness of creation.
"The glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists in beholding God. For if the manifestation of God which is made by means of the creation affords life to all living in the earth, much more does that revelation of the Father which comes through the Word give life to those who see God."
The spiritual life is not built on great moments but on small, daily acts of faithfulness that no one sees. Discipline is the quiet architecture of the soul.
--E.M. Bounds, *The Necessity of Prayer*
What am I holding onto today that I am not willing to surrender in order to see God clearly?
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
--Marcus Aurelius, 2nd century
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