When I was a teenager, I started playing keyboard by ear. I could hear a song to the point where it stayed in my head, and I was able to reproduce it on the keyboard. I remember one time, I had finished playing My Heart Will Go On, from the movie Titanic, and a friend of the family had asked me when I had learned the song. My reply was "Just now." I had played it note for note without a single mistake just then, for the first time. I had even won a talent show when I was in the 4-H for my own composition, The Horror Hymn.
However, I'm not here to toot my own horn. I know a lot of people who are way better than I am. One day, I had gone over a friend's house and played some songs on his Korg synthesizer. He asked if I always played with my eyes closed. It was something that I had never thought about before. I did tend to close my eyes while playing songs. The reply was simple.
"Sometimes the eyes can deceive what the heart knows."
When I play music, I have to feel it in my heart. Sometimes by looking at my hands, I mess up. It's like my eyes are telling my hands to do the wrong thing. However, if I listen to my heart, I don't. It wasn't until recently that I had realized that the same quote that I had said many years before applies to being a Christian. Too many times we allow what we see on the surface to stop us from being true Christians.
How many times have we not approached someone in church or on the street, or anywhere to share the love of God just based on someone's appearance? Doesn't God love them too? Shouldn't we let them know it? Shouldn't we be the examples? How many who are lost can be found if we share in the love of God?
We can never know the heart of another. There are always questions. Does this person know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Does this person even know about the love that led to the sacrifice for our sins so we may have eternal life? Do we approach, or do we judge? Do we welcome, or do we exclude?
Think about it. Can we be effective as Christians if we shun someone because they didn't "dress properly for church?" What is the proper "dress code" for church? If you don't know the answer to the question, read your Bible. Jesus came to those as they were, not as they should be. He had spent more time with the outcasts of society than with the "in" crowd. The Pharisees were the ones that the society held up as the pious, as the examples of what it meant to be righteous. Jesus was quick to point out that they weren't referring to them as "whitewashed tombs" or that they clean the outside of the cup but keep the inside dirty. He had called them a "brood of vipers." They were only concerned with what was on the outside and boasted of their false righteousness.
Who do you think should join us as fellow Christians in the adoptive family of God? Who does God want there? Everyone! God loves everyone. Do not let your eyes deceive you. Your heart knows. Use it.
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