If the lenses
In our heart
Aren’t regularly
Cleaned by us,
We see the world
With bias.

The lens
Of our heart
Is often so dirty
That we don’t know
It needs to be cleansed.

Some lenses make life look better. Look at life thru those lenses. If you’ll start to see your life through fresh, hope-filled lenses, you’ll begin to feel like you have a whole new life.

If you only look at life thru the cold-eyed lens of data, you’ll miss much that your heart has to teach you. It’s easy to become legalistically blind to the fact that people can love and be kind to each other, even when they disagree.

As humans, we sometimes wear blindfolds, but we sincerely believe they’re lenses that help us see better. Such deception isn’t rare.

Here’s a curious observation: I wrote a book about race and some of my white friends have strongly criticized it without even reading it. Racial healing must have the lens of truth as its foundation. The longer we ignore or deny the cruelty in our past, the more we delay healing.

Contemporary culture has trained us to look at life thru a lens that blurs our sin and makes us think that we’re good people. Let the risen Jesus be your ophthalmologist and give you daily I-examinations. To adjust our inner lenses so we can see beyond our biases is called repentance.

My heart was blurry, and people looked scary (especially those who were a different color than me). Then Jesus put His lenses on my heart and let me see that all people need love and compassion.

Jesus gives me powerful lenses for seeing the world–love, joy, peace, hope, faith, honesty, patience, kindness, and on and on! If we’re not careful, going to church can become so habitual that it acts like Son-glasses and dims the reality of the Son of God.

God’s looking for people who will speak truth with love and compassion, not with anger or pride. Beliefs about Jesus that don’t make you want to love, follow, and obey Him daily, fall short of true faith.