Seeing with the eyes of God

It's been a while since I last posted, but I am feeling lately that God is speaking clearly to us as a church. We just finished a series on 'Place of Ministry' where we tried to highlight the central place that our Christianity has in the workplace and how God wants to use us for Kingdom business out there, outside the four walls of 'church'.
this week I have been preparing for another speaking opportunity at my parents church, where I grew up, I'm sure some will still think of me in short trousers and blond hair (yes, its true, but a v. long time ago..)
So here I sit pondering what God is doing and what He is saying to me to relate to them, but also what God is saying to us as a church...

The limitations of what God can do through us is directly proportional to the extent we will allow Him to work through us.

Because of Zacchaeus who we looked at last week, I find myself thinking more about how God looks at a person rather than how man does. I was reminded of 1 Samuel 16:7 where God has to remind even that fantastic servant of God Samuel, that God isn't looking at the outside, but the heart! I then was reading in Matthew 1 where God was showing Joseph that Mary's baby wasn't an accident to be silently resolved, but instead that He was at work and would do the impossible...

Then with the fall of Colonel Gadaffi the Libyan dictator the newspapers have run with the headlines 'That's for Lockerbie' - This type of rhetoric concerns me as it gives a tit-for-tat mentality that when someone does something I don't like then I have the right to retaliate.

Back to the story of Zacchaeus where we see plenty of people who have more than enough just cause to take the life of the greedy little man who was robbing them on a daily basis. Jesus, although He knew about all the robbing nad stealing could go and invite Himself to Zacchaeus's house for a meal.
Who else could possibly see the potential in this awful man but God Himself!
Jesus sees through the fancy clothes and the title and sees a sinful man looking for an opportunity to repent and become righteous before a holy God!
Jesus gives him just that, following Zacchaeus' more than generous repentance and the remuneration of the many people he had stolen from Jesus can declare that 'Today salvation has come to this house.'
There is also another element to this story because Jesus doesn't stop there, but goes on to give Zacchaeus the thing he had given away years before and that was his spiritual heritage. In accepting this work with the Romans he had been ostracised from the Jewish community, so now here we find Jesus not only forgiving sins, but reuniting him back into the family of God both in the physical sense among his neighbours and peers and also to his heavenly Father. Only Jesus can do this.
So, what is the message from this passage from us today?
Mabye it is in the first words that Jesus spoke... 'Zacchaeus'
Jesus knew his name, but more than that, Jesus knew the meaning of that name, it means 'Pure and righteous one' and what the crowd could not see as they muttered about Jesus entertaining sinners, was what Jesus could see and that was an opportunity to bring restoration to that name. Jesus saw the potential in this man who had been written off by Jewish society, Jesus was bringing reconciliation with God and restoring that name to its original meaning, that Zacchaeus would be seen as pure and righteous before God, and that could only come through Jesus... In Christ alone, my hope is found....
What is our action point from this, only that we need to stop looking and judging as the world does, but instead be listening out for God to speak into our lives and situations, allow God to reveal the potential in a life that He can see, and work on that basis.
God wants us to see with His eyes, and look at the the heart, instead of writing off that person because of whatever external image you see that is putting you off. Allow God to use you to see with His eyes and to bring restoration and reconciliation through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour...