When I was about sixteen, I remember sitting in study hall in the library trying to focus on my homework.  As I looked up from my books, I tried to focus my attention on a poster from across the room and to my surprise I couldn’t make out the words.  It looked a little blurry to me.  I resisted at first and thought it’s probably because I’m tired.  I would rub my eyes, tell myself it’s nothing, try to sleep it off, but it still wouldn’t get better.  I found myself the next day not being able to read the chalkboard from the back of the classroom.  Finally, I came to terms with myself and knew something was wrong and I needed to get my eyes fixed.  I sought help and after visiting the doctor, he confirmed what I suspected all along, I was near sighted.  Shortly afterwards, I finally got my first pair of glasses and it was such a relief to function normally again. Still to this day, I use my glasses for driving at night, watching television or for reading things at a distance.  Without them I wouldn’t be able to have perfect vision.  I was thinking about this the other day, when it comes to our spiritual eyes, a lot of times we don’t want to admit we have eyesight problems. Some of us as Christians, we take off our glasses given to us by God and instead of seeing ourselves, people, circumstances, and even our Heavenly Father through the lenses of faith, we tend to take them off and look at life in our natural eyes.  We would rather spend our energy squinting, trying to interpret what we see through our own blurry vision. But all that ends up doing is leading us down a path stumbling like a blind person in the dark.  Remember the song, I was blind but now I see? God’s intention after saving us was never to prescribe us glasses so that we would take them off again.  There’s a lot of Christians who are nearsighted, forgotten they have been forgiven from their sins.  No it’s time to take the blinders off and put on the glasses of faith.  You see the glasses are the gospel truths of who we are in Christ and faith is the lens by which we see ourselves and how we see God the Father.  Jesus says if you have seen me you have seen the Father.  How many pictures have you seen in cathedrals, or history books, where Jesus is smiling or laughing?  I haven’t seen one, in fact I have seen many where he is serious, not smiling, somber, even mad.  This unfortunately is the image of how man over the centuries has seen the Father.  A hard taskmaster ready to get out his whip and beat you.  But that’s not the Father at all, that’s religion.  He’s the good shepherd, He laid down His life for His enemies, He’s the one who came to wash our feet, eat and drink with sinners and tax collectors in their homes.  He is the one who said to the prostitute I don’t condemn you and to a thief and swindler up on a tree, He looked directly at Zacchaeus and said I see you, I am coming to your house today.  You see our image of the Father is how we are going to view people.  Those in the natural eyes of religion look at the woman who poured perfume on Jesus’s feet and say to her, “that perfume could’ve been sold to the poor”, instead of seeing the beautiful meaning behind her actions through the eyes of Jesus.  Paul said he never looked at people from the flesh but by the new man.  That’s how Christ saw Paul.  That’s why he was able to view people from a heavenly perspective and call them saints and temples even though their experience was fleshly.  Paul’s vision of God had changed him.  On the road to Damascus Paul wanted to kill Christians because he had a blurred view of who the Father really was but when He finally saw Him in the form of Christ, he saw His grace and his unconditional love and his response was “Lord what do I do?”  When we allow ourselves again to put on the glasses of the gospel truths of who the Father is and how much we are loved by Him and how much we have in Christ, it will change our lives in how we look at others, ourselves, our situations good or bad.  Paul had learned the secret of contentment in His situations and to him he could see that no matter what, to live is Christ to die is gain. When you see others do you see them as the Father sees them or do you see them in your flesh, your self righteousness?  When your circumstances tell you that you lack, do you see God as abandoning you or still for you? It’s time for the church to get their eyes checked.  There’s a hurting world that needs to know and see this love of Christ but we are too busy complaining, judging others, obeying rules, cleaning our glasses, confessing our sins over and over thinking if we just rub our eyes a little bit more than maybe our focus would be clear as a bell!  But all along we just have to put on the glasses of the Gospel!   See again child of God!  See who you really are, see who the Father really is, see your neighbor for the first time, your enemy in a different light. See potential in people, see your trial as an opportunity.  Are you looking for God, don’t look up, look down.  He’s right there all along, right before you on His knees, with eyes of love and a smile as big as any, holding a rag ready to wash your feet. 

First Corinthians, 5:16

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.  Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.

Ephesians 1:18

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.