Articles
Seeing Clearly
Do we look through a particular lens to see life? Do we look at everything that goes on through our own personal filters, seeing what we want and illuminating what we want? Do we use that same lens to view God and our place with Him as a Christian, or perhaps do we make Christianity the lens we look through as we look at everything else?
Now that may be as confusing as who's on 1st in the old Abbott and Costello routine, but think through it. God wants us to take on as much of His nature as we can, doesn't He? He wants us to see like He does, reason like He does, love like He does, and respond according to His will. So do we use some earthly method to look at life and evaluate it, or do we use what we know from God?
The quote from C.S. Lewis in the graphic, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else" is something that should encourage us all as we consider things, what they appear to be vs what they really are, and how we respond to them. We fully believe in God, His creation and His presence in our lives don't we? If we do, then do we see to it that our vision or observance of the rest of life and the world is what God would desire us to see?
It's no secret that if we do this, then we must call sin - sin. We must recognize those things detested by God to be detested by us as well, and in saying that, remember God loves the sinner He just hates the sin! Likewise, we would call righteous things righteous, because just as sin is wrong, virtuous or upright things are right. There is no pulling the wool over God's eyes by renaming evil things, or by changing laws to make things that are wrong into something right. Likewise we live in a society today that goes to the other extreme and calls righteous things evil, and we should never drink that cool-aid either.
Today consider whether or not God's light, His eagerness for us to see as He does, shows us what we see in the world, or if we are like most of the world, seeing from the perspective of human thinking and reasoning, which God says are foreign to His will. Remember, God said, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)
We need to be extremely careful, and in fact overly cautious, that we don't let our feelings guide us. God's Word and His will are not personalized to our feelings. "There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death." (Prob 14:12) Remember what human reasoning got Adam and Eve, and ultimately us all, death! And if we reject God's will for us and fail to obey Him, He teaches us that spiritual death, separation from Him for eternity, will be our only destiny.
Today, let us pray that God may open our eyes to everything clearly, so that we can see things the same way He does.
