“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

I have struggled recently with a new pair of glasses. They are too big and keep slipping down my nose, which means that the invisible transition in the lens from far to near vision has shifted from where I need it to be. My vision, especially reading, is blurry from being out of focus.

We can also be out of focus in other areas, but as in the case of vision, the blurriness is still a faulty lens. A literary example is the idea of seeing through rose-colored glasses as optimism, but the primary objective is not to falsify what we see, and rather to ensure that our lens is true and clear so that we are seeing with truth and clarity. How do we do that?

In John 17:17, Jesus says “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”  We should study the Bible to understand the truth, and the truth in the Bible will then be the lens through which we discern what is true. The Bible informs us about basic doctrines, such as who God is, what sin is, what it means to be redeemed, and who we are in Christ. These are all areas for potential blurriness and confusion—for being out of focus.

Here are some examples:

Who God is. Believers often refer to God as our Heavenly Father. After all, that is what Jesus called Him. However, not all of us had a good earthly father, and the earthly example we know becomes our lens for knowing our Heavenly Father.

How do we remedy that? We read about our Heavenly Father in the Bible to get a more accurate lens. “God is love” (1 John 4:8). And love is defined for us in 1 Corinthians 13.

What sin is. In our culture, sin is relativized. We compare ourselves to others; and certainly, we are not that bad, right? Some people think you can balance out the sin with the good that we do. So, what is the problem? A faulty lens!

When we read the Bible, we understand through a biblical lens that sin is any transgression, any missing of the mark of perfect obedience. And we learn that God cannot abide sin. Now that’s not good news, but it is what we desperately need to understand. In the Old Testament, we read “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away” (Isaiah 64:6). And in the Old Testament, Paul confirms that “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

What it means to be redeemed. There are so many misunderstandings about death, so many blurry lenses. Some believe there is no afterlife. Some believe that everyone is going to heaven unless they commit some atrocity. Some just do not have a sense of urgency because we think we always have time to get serious about our eventual destiny.

However, the Bible is very clear about the afterlife, particularly what happens to those who do not choose to believe in Jesus before their death; the urgency of being ready. Reading the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus gives us an idea of the reality and the misery of Hell, the physical torment and the psychological torment of being unable to approach God.  A full understanding of Hell should drive us all to seek salvation from it for ourselves and everyone we know. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Who we are in Christ. A faulty lens leads us to think we can be content once we have achieved our life goals, when we have the material things we desire, when we get to do all the things we enjoy. While these things are not bad, they are not the ultimate.

A biblical lens informs us that when we are in God’s will, we become a member of His family, brothers and sisters in Christ. We then have the joy of knowing our true identity, the joy and security of knowing that although earthly things can rust and deteriorate, the Kingdom of God lasts forever. We can rest in this knowledge both now and for all eternity. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

Check your focus; get a new lens. Let us stop peering through distorted lenses and instead seek the truth through God’s Word. Meet Him face to face.

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Judy