Lenses

Lenses are really big right now. I tend to be a photographic purist who tries to capture the essence of the true object in the photo. Filters and lenses use mechanical or technological means to alter the image. What you see with your eyes is not what appears on film or screen. With the advent of Instagram and other social media sites that streamline the photographic process. Simple filter apps allow the user to alter any (and seemingly every) image until it resembles their artistic vision. These filters and lenses change the way we view the artwork; they change the way we perceive reality.

We, too, have lenses through which we view the world. These are our worldviews and philosophies. Sometimes we can identify and expound upon them. Often though, the roots of our worldviews are deeper and less accessible. They shape how we live on a very practical level. Our habits and behaviors are shaped not by our intellectual assents but by the lens through which we view the world. Very often, though our words may speak of truth, our thoughts and actions remain firmly rooted in faulty lenses; faulty perspectives. We may protest by creedal assent but our behaviors speak something closer to truth.

For the follower of Christ, we claim our identity in Jesus. We speak the creeds. We teach truth. Yet so often our own habits and sins betray our words. Too often we operate through a lens which is not compatible with the gospel. We live lives in private that are defined by doubt, sin, feelings of helplessness and insecurity. Though we would firmly rebuke such attitudes if confronted in the pulpit, we live lives of spiritual poverty. Peter wrote that “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.” We go throughout our lives under faulty pretenses. For the Christian, our identity HAS been changed, past tense. We HAVE (past tense, again) been given power to live godly lives. We must endeavor with all our being to rebuke the false lenses that cause us innumerable pains and powerlessness. Peter goes on to write that: “He who lacks these qualities [the power pertaining to life and godliness] is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.” Ouch. Peter’s words wound us because they illuminate the depth of the deception in which we so often live; the lies we so often believe. Let us live, with enduring focus on diffusing the false heart-beliefs that shape our experience and deprive us of the power to live joyfully as Christ’s ambassadors