What Lens Do You Use?

If we bear the cross we shall be neither controlled nor influenced by worldly affection but shall be fit to love in the power of the Holy Spirit. Even so did the Lord Jesus love His family while on earth.  Watchman Nee

How do you see people?  By that I mean when you look at someone, what lens do you use?  I have a camera and it has a 14X zoom lens.  When I look through the lens I can see a ladybug on a bush across my yard or when I watch my nephew play football, I can see his face up close even though I am sitting in the stands.  If you were to take the lens that you view the world through, what would you see?   

Too many times I think we look at others with a filtered lens.  I’ve been guilty of it.  When I see or meet an individual for the first time, I make a judgment about that person before they even say anything.  If the person’s hair is different or their clothes are not the current style, we start to see the person through the filter of the world.  If the person doesn’t act like us, talk like us, or look like us, we determine that they are not worth our attention or time.

 

When you remove all the filters from the camera lens, you start to see the world as it is, not how we think it should be. How many times have you heard about the model who had things airbrushed away before she appears on the cover of a magazine?  We are totally shocked when some tabloid takes a photo of that same person and we almost don’t recognize them.

The other side of this is that sometimes we use a filter on ourselves.  We show the world what we want them to see, not who we really are.  When we do this we have placed a filter on their lens.  We decide that we don’t want them to see the sin inside of us, so we pretend we are something we’re not. 

One of the things I love so much about Jesus is that He didn’t view the people in the world as we do.  He didn’t use a lens that filtered out the sin in the person’s life.  He looked at them as God looks at us.  Jesus’ only lens was love.  He looked past the sin to the person within.  God created each of us in His image and Jesus loves each of us exactly how God created us.  

       

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I want to love like Jesus did during His time on earth.  He looked at people with an unfiltered lens.  Help me to remove the filters I use to look at people and myself and see others as Your children.  When I stop looking at and judging others by the worlds standards, I will see what Jesus’ love means.    

              

Scripture:    For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:38-39