As we saw yesterday, Jesus wants a relationship with us. This is what eternal life is all about! Here we see Jesus looking for that relationship with the Laodicean church. Remember them? They were the ones that were neither hot nor cold and God was about to spit them out of His mouth! But they were part of the church and had already found salvation through Jesus. What they lacked was a strong relationship with Him. But Jesus wanted a relationship with them very badly. He pursued them, rebuked them, and asked continually for a relationship with them.
He even counselled them on what to do about it:
"I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on you eyes, so you can see."(vs. 18)
Jesus wanted them to see Him! He wanted them to know Him intimately. And though He was pursuing them, they needed to respond to His love by getting to know Him. But how could they know Him unless they could see Him. This is why Jesus counsels them to buy eye salve. Their eyes needed to be opened so that they could see Jesus as who He really His. Then they could get to know Him in the way He desired and in the way that would satisfy them most! Their new vision in Jesus would bring their temperature for Him to an extremity and fuel their worship of Him and relationship with Him. A relationship in which we really see who a person is is much more exciting than one where all we see is the surface fluff of who they are.
How do we get eye salve? We buy it! (vs 18.) And what does it cost? It could cost you a lot. Peter Todd gives an example of the cost of eye salve in his book, "Heavenly Worship":
In 1820, a baby girl was born to a Puritan family in the United States. After a few weeks, she developed an infection that inflamed her eyes. As good Puritans, the family probably prayed, but the village doctor was away. Unfortunately, the stand-in doctor put hot poultices on her eyes, which burnt her corneas and eliminated all her sight.
Despite these difficulties Fanny Crosby wrote:
"I believe that the greatest blessing the Creator ever bestowed upon me was when He permitted my external vision to be closed. He consecrated me for the work for which He created me. I have never known what it is to see, and therefore cannot realize my personal loss. But I have had the most remarkable dreams; I have seen the prettiest eyes, the most beautiful faces, the most remarkable landscapes. The loss of sight has been no loss to me... Sightless I see and seeing, find soul-vision, though my eyes are blind."
As Peter Todd explains, "After having asked for eye salve, the truly difficult part may be in paying for it. For Fanny Crosby, it meant humbly embracing the process that God took her on when He allowed her sight to be lost." Eye salve may not be cheap. But it holds infinite rewards. A relationship with Jesus is the most satisfying and rewarding relationship we can have. And Jesus is waiting for us to open the door and let Him in so we can get to know Him better. He wants to eat lunch with you - talk about what's going on in your life and let Him tell you a little more about Himself. You won't be disappointed!
My thoughts regarding eye salve comes from the revelations of my pastor, Peter Todd whom I mentioned above and who wrote the book, "Heavenly Worship." If you're interested in the book you can find it at Amazon. The chapter on eye salve is Chapter One and I used pages 4-8 in particular. It is a fantastic book on the subject of worship! Highly recommended!
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