You Through God’s Lens
The lens in which our parents saw us brought about many actions and reactions. God has a lens from which He views us and as we trust Him, he sees His righteousness. If we are sinful, He cannot look upon our sin. In His watchfulness of us, He expects His norm for our lives. He has an ultimate plan for who we are and how we will conduct ourselves.
As each of us were raised in our own families, we knew the “norm” expected. Our parents set down boundaries and as children, we knew those boundaries and worked to stay within them. When we didn’t stay inside of the boundaries, there were definite consequences for our actions.
As we go into the new year, it’s important for us to realize that God has norms for us and if we go outside of those boundaries there will be consequences in our lives. Just as with kids, when we went outside the boundaries, everyone in our circle of influence was affected. When we leave God’s purpose for our lives, all of our loved ones are affected. The Bible says the sins of the parents follow the children to the 3rd and 4th generation. (Exodus 34:6-7) In other words, what I do with my children will pass down to my children and their children. Of course, this can work in reverse too. Great things can be passed from one generation to the next and that is our goal; to break the curse of the wrong and honor and uplift the great passing it from one generation to the next.
I was the baby of the family. When my older siblings ever got in trouble it was like a wake-up call to me not to do a certain thing and too I could see the whole picture especially from the kid perspective because while I may not have been a partner in crime, I was closer to my brother or sister’s situation than to my parents. As result, I so often tended to side with siblings but revered my parents.
Where God is concerned, there is no siding with anyone. His Word is absolute. His Word is perfect His Word is divine. Our job is to see the actions in our lives through God’s scope. We must look at every action of ours through His lens. In the “Advanced Seminar Textbook” there is a chapter on understanding that each one of us have “bind spots”. It is explained that we often try to explain away our wrong-doing using every possible explanation and most often it is because we have a blind spot where we either did not turn back to see the situation, did not carefully look at the situation or chose to avoid seeing the truth.
The Bible tells us that God is truth and we must see everything in our lives from His perspective. We must allow Him to reign in our lives and let Him reveal to us our faults, failing and short comings so that we can be perfected by His purpose for our lives. He has a purpose in our lives and He wants to live out His purpose through faithfulness, moral, conscious, thankful and honorable ways.
Faithfulness to Him- The Bible says we all have a “measure of faith” so inside of each person there is some faith to lean on to learn to trust God. The Holy Scripture also says, “seek Him while he can be found”. We must be careful not to go beyond “that time” where He will save us.
Moral- Each of us have a moral compass. We each know internally right from wrong but that is why we must and I stress must have God’s Spirit inside of us. “Except He draw us” John 6:4. In other words, without God inside of us, we may know right from wrong but not have the power to overcome the wrong. We must have God in us and “If God be for us, who can be against us”.
Consciousness of God- When God’s Holy Spirit indwells a person, God lives inside the person. Yes, it is a mystery but it is a truth of God. God will come and reside inside your being if He draws you and you let Him in. Ask God to give you His Holy Spirit.
Thankfulness- As live live day to day we should be forever thankful that God has protected us from the evil one . The devil is a real being. Only God can protect us from his mean and hateful wiles. He is out to “kill, steal and destroy” the Bible says. No one is exempt from his evil ways and only a true Christian has power over the darkness and even Christians must understand how to protect themselves from this evil devourer. We must be in prayer and thanksgiving daily.
Honorable Behaviors- As we live out the life God has for us, we honor Him. If our actions are not honoring to Him, we are certainly in sin and living such that error will confront us at every turn.
God’s norm for our lives is that we would live for Him. Our speech should honor him. The way we carry ourselves should show honor to God. Our personal lives should measure up not to man’s standard but to God for He is our hope and our refuge.