{"id":16410,"date":"2018-02-05T09:13:47","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T14:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16410"},"modified":"2018-02-05T09:59:56","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T14:59:56","slug":"blessed-are-the-pure-in-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16410","title":{"rendered":"Blessed Are the Pure in Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JsLk-Prtsn0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Blessed Are the Pure in Heart<br \/>\nMonday, February 5, 2018<\/p>\n<p>Blessed are the pure in heart: they shall see God. \u2014Matthew 5:8<br \/>\nWhen the heart is right, Jesus says, seeing will be right. He ties together heart and sight. Consider the saying, \u201cBeauty is in the eyes of the beholder.\u201d So is God. All we need to do is keep the lens clean, the heart pure.<br \/>\nCynthia Bourgeault describes the connection between the \u201cheart\u201d and the ability to see God as taught in the Wisdom tradition:<br \/>\nThe heart in the ancient sacred traditions has a very specific and perhaps surprising meaning. It is not the seat of our personal affective life\u2014or even, ultimately, of our personal identity\u2014but an organ for the perception of divine purpose and beauty. It is our antenna, so to speak, given to us to orient us toward the divine radiance and to synchronize our being with its more subtle movements. The heart is not for personal expression but for divine perception. . . .<br \/>\nThe ancient Wisdom traditions all saw (I do not mean they theorized; they directly perceived) that the physical world we take for our empirical, time-and-space-bound reality is encompassed in another: a coherent and powerful world of divine purpose always surrounding and interpenetrating it. This other, more subtle world is invisible to the senses, and to the mind it appears to be pure speculation. But if the heart is awake and clear, it can directly receive, radiate, and reflect this unmanifest divine Reality.<br \/>\nIn the language of sacred tradition, the emotional center [where the heart lies] carries the \u201creconciling\u201d force. It serves as a bridge between the mind and the body and also between our usual physical world and this invisible other realm. When properly attuned, the emotional center\u2019s most striking capacity, lacking in the mind alone, is the ability to comprehend the language of paradox. Logical inconsistencies that the mind must reduce into a simple \u201ceither-or\u201d can be held by the heart in \u201cboth-and\u201d\u2014and even more important, felt that way\u2014without needing to resolve, close down, or protect oneself from the pain that ambiguity always brings. [1]<\/p>\n<p>Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999) writes:<br \/>\nWhen the distorting instrument of the mind is made clear, we see life not as a collection of fragments, but as a seamless whole. We see the divine spark at the center of our very being; and we see simultaneously that in the heart of every other human being\u2014in every country, in every race\u2014though hidden perhaps by clouds of ignorance and conditioning, that same spark is present, one and the same in all. [2]<\/p>\n<p>Gateway to Presence:<br \/>\nIf you want to go deeper with today\u2019s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.<\/p>\n<p>=========================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (1)<\/strong><br \/>\nBy Oswald Chambers<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>If I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. \u2014Philippians 2:17<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the work of another believer\u2014to pour out your life sacrificially for the ministry and faith of others? Or do you say, \u201cI am not willing to be poured out right now, and I don\u2019t want God to tell me how to serve Him. I want to choose the place of my own sacrifice. And I want to have certain people watching me and saying, \u2018Well done.\u2019 \u201d<br \/>\nIt is one thing to follow God\u2019s way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a \u201cdoormat\u201d under other people\u2019s feet. God\u2019s purpose may be to teach you to say, \u201cI know how to be abased\u2026\u201d (Philippians 4:12). Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? Are you ready to be less than a mere drop in the bucket\u2014 to be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and exhausted\u2014 not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work while maintaining a saintly attitude, because they feel such service is beneath their dignity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blessed Are the Pure in Heart Monday, February 5, 2018 Blessed are the pure in heart: they shall see God. \u2014Matthew 5:8 When the heart is right, Jesus says, seeing will be right. He ties together heart and sight. Consider the saying, \u201cBeauty is in the eyes of the beholder.\u201d So is God. All we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16414,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16410\/revisions\/16414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}