Wouldn’t you like to have x-ray vision like Superman? I mean, you could see through things to find stuff that you lost, and you could avoid people you didn’t want to see without opening your door. Of course, you would need to be like Superman and not use your super power for any kind of nefarious purpose. Yeah, right. Maybe that’s why God didn’t give us that capability. On the other hand, if we all had x-ray vision, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, would it?
As powerful as Superman’s x-ray vision is, it is not as powerful as God’s vision. Superman can see through things–God sees into the heart. When the prophet Samuel was assigned to choose among Jesse’s sons who would be the next King of Israel, Samuel assumed the choice would be Eliab, the handsomest, eldest, and the tallest of the boys. He would not have chosen David, the youngest and smallest, if God had not whispered in his ear: “I don’t see mortals the way you see them–I look at their hearts and not on their outward appearance.” (See 1 Samuel 16:1-13)
God’s ability to see into our hearts is even more compelling than Dr. King’s admonition that we are to measure people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. God sees even beyond the character we show to the world. God sees through to our hearts, with the authority that only God holds, as the one who knows us completely, and who knows who we were intended to be.
And God wants those of us who believe to see the world through God’s eyes. God calls us to be ambassadors for Christ in the world, and that means we need to see things as God sees them so we can properly represent God in the world. (See 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21) Whew! That’s a pretty tall order. If our job is to try to see the world around us as God sees it, we have to learn how to see beyond the physical appearance of things. We need to see into the hearts of people and into the hearts of the situations that we face. We have to understand God, somewhat, in order to do that, don’t you think? And it takes faith. That’s what we are to use, a kind of x-ray vision that comes through faith in God.
When we look at others through faith’s x-ray vision, we don’t see color, race, nationalities, cultures…all those divisions that the world creates among God’s people. We instead see the beloved children of God, a beautiful rainbow of diversity designed according to God’s amazing creativity. When we look through faith’s x-ray vision, we no longer see different religions, just children who’re struggling in their own different ways and cultures to understand God.
When we understand that all of this earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, we no longer see people coming from Mexico as illegal aliens or people trying to take away our jobs. We instead see a people who are trying to make a living for themselves, and we see that there is plenty of land between these two countries with more than enough resources for all of us. As Ambassadors for Christ, we understand that there is a better way to allocate the resources so that all can do well– and we understand that we need to help others see that.
Through faith, we no longer see children who are brutal gang members and who learn evil as fodder for our prison systems, but we see them instead as children who have themselves been brutalized by poverty and strife and abuse, with no one to help them through it. As Ambassadors for Christ, we understand that there is a way to reach them with the love of God, and we know that if we work at reconciling them to their true natures, we can save them.
Through faith, instead of seeing people with different political agendas as enemies or opponents against whom we must fight because they don’t want the same things we want, we see a people who have different views, some of which may be legitimate. As Ambassadors for Christ, we take the first step to reconcile, to mend fences and begin real conversations to work for what is best for all.
Through faith, instead of seeing people who are poor as people who don’t know how to take care of themselves, people who are dependent on others and who drain our resources, we see poverty as the problem to address, and not the people. We see a broken system that protects the haves who want to hang onto what they have and who think they need more than they do. As Ambassadors for Christ, we know it is our job to help the world understand how to better share the abundantly plentiful natural resources that God has given to all of us.
Posted in Faith in Action	| Tagged ambassadors for Christ, Christianity, church, eliminating poverty, faith, faith based organizations, faith in action, good and evil, justice and righteousness, poverty, poverty to prison pipeline, relevant church, religion, social justice, the black church