Lens

My wife knows me pretty well. We have been married for over 36 years. We finish each others sentences. She fits perfectly next to me when I put my arm around her neck and pull her close. We've been together for so long, she even knows what I am thinking . . . which, at times, can be quite scary!

When my birthday rolled around a few months ago my wife knew exactly what to get me - a new lens for my camera. A BIG new lens. A REALLY BIG new lens! A REALLY, REALLY BIG new lens!! :O

Yet, for as perfect as that gift was, as perfect as we are together, and as much as we know each others hopes and dreams, we look at the world through different lenses, different viewpoints, different . . . world views.

What is a world view? It's how we interpret the things that happen around us and the people we interact with on a daily basis. It's how we react to those people and those situations. Most people, as they go through their lives, throughout their early years, gather experiences - lessons learned from The School of Hard Knocks. Those experiences, those lessons learned, become a filter for how we view subsequent events and situations in our lives. They become a "lens", through which we view the world and all that happens in it.

There are two types of world views in the "world" today. There is the secular world view and there is the biblical world view. Typically, the secular world view is devoid of any religion. Experiences are taken at face value. There is no deity to answer to so those with a secular world view see things as "just happening," random occurrences, mere coincidences, no purpose per se - just events.

Those with a biblical world view however see things through a different lens. God's written Word, the Bible, is the basis for those with this world view. Rather than make decisions by themselves, those with a Biblical world view often turn to God's Word, trying to determine God's will before a decision is made. Prayer is often utilized, not merely spoken words.

Those with a Biblical world view also tend to believe in Creationism, not Evolution. Evolutionists follow the theory of the Big Bang and random chance, spontaneous evolution. They live in a world that began through a puddle of randomly generated ooze and an evolutionary trail that had us humans evolve from single-celled organisms to apes to . . . us.

Creationists also believe the world was begun with a big bang, but it was God making all the noise as He created the heavens and the earth - BANG!! Creationists believe that God created man and all of the animals. They believe this because it says so . . . in The Bible.

Since I became a believer over seven years ago, my view of life has changed. I used to be very self-focused, very secular in my world view. But the way I view the vworld has changed. It changed when new evidence presented itself, namely God's Holy Spirit and what He has done in my life.

I would submit to you today that any person, professing to be a Christian, yet following a secular world view, is not really a Christian. I will probably get into trouble saying that because many feel otherwise. Yet I stand by what I say. Why? Because, as the old Sunday School song goes, "the Bible tells me so."

It's simple. Christians follow Christ. Christ (Jesus) is fully God and fully man. And when Jesus says He is God I believe Him and when the Bible says God created the world, well, that's good enough for me too.

We are instructed in John 17 to be "in the world, but not of the world." Jesus tells us in John 14, "If you love me you will keep my commands." So, if we love Jesus (what ALL Christians should be doing) then we should obey what He says. And when we are told to be IN the world not OF the world, we are being told not to have a secular world view. That's the way I read it anyway.

Christianity, and having a Biblical world view, is very easy to understand for me, but not for everybody and that is where the problems begin. That is where we start getting into trouble as churches, as denominations. We start looking at things through our OWN lenses, "custom" lenses we have created ourselves, FOR ourselves, we begin to fall away from God. Just like the people did while Moses was up on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments from God. The people turned away and created for themselves a golden calf to worship. And that was a VERY bad thing.

"15 Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. 16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” 18 But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” 19 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it." - Exodus 32:15-20

When we turn from God's ways and look upon life through our own lens, we are in effect turning away from God. And when we look at life through the lens of a secular society we are ignoring God completely and that never, EVER ends well.

Moses presents the Ten Commandments to those with both Biblical and Secular World views. How do you suppose that went?