Do You Have Your God Glasses On?

II Peter 1:3-9 (NIV translation, in italics)

I came across this scripture this morning when I was reading my Bible. As I was reading through the list of qualities one should work for in their Christian life I came across this verse, and it hit me: do I have my God glasses on? Here is the verse: whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins. I will list the qualities later, but I wanted first to address this verse and why I thought of the title. When a person goes to the eye doctor and are told they are nearsighted, it means they cannot see anything in the distance clearly. Therefore, they are prescribed glasses to see things in the distant more clearly. It is like that in the Christian life. The more we put our God glasses on and practice the following qualities the more we can see what God is doing around us and more clearly what God has instore for our future. So let us look closer at this scripture through our God Glasses.

3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Once we become a Christian, God gives us everything we need to live godly. We became a Christian through the knowledge God loved us so much He sent His Son, Jesus, to die a horrible death on a cross and on the third day rise from the grave. Why? Because God loves us and wants us to have a relationship with Him, to see Him more clearly. We will see His glory and goodness through the lenses of a godly life.

4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. With knowledge of God’s glory and goodness we see more clearly God’s great and precious promises found throughout the entire Bible. Looking closer at these promises causes us to have a desire to become more like Jesus. When we do, we will see how the world is becoming increasingly corrupt because of people’s evil desires. Yet, we look past the corruption to see the precious promises of life forever with God in Heaven. Focus on that!

5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins. It is a daily walk focusing on adding stronger lenses of faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. The stronger our God glasses, are the more we focus on God, the more we can see our way through life even when the bad things come. If we do not practice these qualities our God glasses become ineffective and unproductive. So, do you have your God glasses on and are your lenses getting stronger?