What if God…
…chose only to see the world through the eyes of people? What would he see? Perhaps with all the vile, perverse, and degenerate people there are – perhaps that would be too depressing to Him. No wonder He wanted to wipe mankind off the face of the earth in the flood, and torch Sodom and Gomorrah.
No, rather, what if God chose only to see the world through the eyes of those who claim to believe in Him? Would it really be all that different from the first point of view? Would He see acts of kindness, forbearance, and mercy? Sure He would. But those might be few and far between, hard to cull from the more prevalent self-centered views we would tend to give Him.
If I were to explore the analogy of the church being the body of Christ, what types of folks would be the eyes, or ears, or feet of Christ? I suppose those with great “vision” would likely be the eyes of the Lord. I did a search for the “eyes of the Lord” in the online NIV Bible. The phrase occurs 88 times in the Bible, and in almost every instance, the context is about God seeing evil and righteousness. The Bible makes it clear that God is not looking at how successful we are in the business world, or how much money we make, or how good we look. No, the Bible overwhelmingly teaches that God is looking at our ACTIONS and ATTITUDES, and whether those are GOOD or EVIL.
I don’t know about everyone else, but when I look out into the world around me, I tend to see THINGS. Yes, I see good and evil, but I prefer to turn away from looking at evil – avoiding it and those who do it. Yet neither do I go out of my way to see those in need, nor go out of my way to help the few that I see in need. Going through this mental exercise, I can see how God would not be overly pleased with me. In fact, it points out the vast distance I must go in my attitudes to be righteous in His sight – and it also points out how great are His mercy and forgiveness.
I asked my Sunday School class – “When this world is finished and destroyed, and God brings about the ‘new heavens and the new earth’, what two things will survive from this world to the next? In other words, what two things on this earth are eternal?” The answer, of course, is: The Word of God, and human souls. This fact alone should give us an unalterable focus to our lives. We should be investing our time, energies, and resources in that which is eternal.
When God looks through your eyes, does he see your righteous acts of kindness, forgiveness, and mercy, or does he see something else? When His own eyes are upon you, will He see good or evil? I fear the answers to those questions in my life. And I pray that I will be able to better heed this lesson.
Something to think about…
Haole Boy.