Searching For And Seeing Christ

Searhing for Christ is a spiritual journey that appeal to those who are intrepid and strong enough to engage in constant face to face epic battles with Evil because Evil persists and never dies.  Camouflaged in goodness, Evil has to be recognized for what it is, and it is many, many things and this writing addresses only self-deceit, defined as intellectual dishonesty, a wilful unwillingness to see and accept the Truth by rationalizing and lying to oneself.  To be able to find Christ is to be able to distinguish without equivocation what is true and feigned goodness within oneself, just as a mirror shows what one looks like on the outside, a person's ultimate conscience shows what is truly inside.  This process is far more difficult than in practice than in theory because the presence of Christ is interwoven intricately with the presence of Satan and sorting out Evil in order to cast it aside is a battle.  Before one is over another has already begun and there are those that are on-going.  Remember, Satan exists and does not rest.

Does that mean one would never find Christ since there are simultaneous battlefronts to attend to always? A yes answer would mean total discouragement but I think the answer does not have to be a yes although it can be.  I believe that the ability to find Christ is not in how many battles we fight, how much time we spend fighting them, how many we had won or lost (even though all of that is important too) but in the approach we take in fighting Evil. To fight Evil sucessfully, one must be armed with a resolute determination, a clean conscience, deep and abiding faith in God, constant and sincere prayers and a platform on which to stand up to Satan that was not built on greed for power, fame, control and/or wealth that had been achieved by virtually any means neessary in an attempt to satisfy one's insatiable selfish and worthless worldly wishes but on one's unmitigated love for and unreserved desire to be with God.

After accomplishing all that, I believe one would be able to recognize Christ in the simple beauty of Goodness in contrast to an unmasked Satan standing naked in all of its ugliness.

Having searhed for and recognized Christ, and having the ability to distinguish Him clearly from Satan, it does not follow that Christ can be seen.  Seeing Christ is a very different matter.  Christ can only be seen in a vision and all such visions are gifts from God.  I do not know the formula for Christ to appear in a vision but I can confidently say that a part of that formulation requires one to have true humility, absolute poverty of spirit, unyielding faith in and enduring love for God.