I was born with it.
20/200.
And that is my good eye. I’m now 71 years old and can no longer adjust my focus from near to far. Add in the “floaters” and, someday soon, cataracts and you can get an idea of my vision.
I’ll never forget my first pair of glasses. I got them in second grade. Intellectually, I knew that trees had leaves……but I never dreamed that I was supposed to be able to see them.
Now I have lots of glasses:
Bifocals for general use.
Computer glasses…..for mid distance work.
Shooting glasses for the range
Safety glasses for up close work in the shop.
Magnifying glasses for super close work.
No glasses for reading.
You get the point.
I get ready to do something……then I choose the glasses best suited for that specific job. And it usually works pretty well…….as long as I am diligent and honest about my choice of glasses….as long as I have access to the right pair of glasses. We’ve all been in a restaurant where an older person can’t read the menu because they didn’t bring their reading glasses.
There is a flip side to the glasses problem, though. Every pair of glasses that I own shows me the world……at a very specific and fairly limited distance. In effect, my glasses filter everything else out. My shop glasses are great for work from 1 to 4 feet. But they confine me to a world where the trees are great green blobs…….without leaves. For me, every pair of glasses is also a filter.
The problem arises when we begin to use filters to eliminate things in our world that we just don’t like. This has become the norm in our political conversation. Conservatives watch Fox which filters out anything positive about liberals. Liberals watch CNN which filters out anything positive about Conservatives. Both sides wind up operating on a different set of facts.
And so we fight. And so we call each other names. We even try to kill each other. But, that is not the worst side of “filters”.
We shop around for a church that we like. This often means a church that teaches a brand of religion that agrees with our opinions…….a church that filters out any teaching that makes us uncomfortable. Possibly a church that tells us that whatever we are doing is OK and filters out passages of the Bible that convict us. The pastor chooses Bible verses that reinforce our life choices and filter out anything that might challenge us. If the pastor starts preaching on topics that are challenging……we fire him or her. This works because most Christians don’t read the Bible on their own.
And that is my challenge for you today. If you are to avoid the trap of a church that sells you a filtered brand of Jesus, you must study the Bible…….all of it……on your own. You must go to the primary source…….the owners manual. Because, if your understanding of Jesus and his teaching doesn’t tell you that you need to make adjustments, you are either a saint……or you are consuming a filtered brand of Christianity.
When was the last time your pastor preached about a burning hell?
When was the last time your pastor preached about loving your enemy……in concrete terms (i.e. loving the political candidate that you are going to vote against)?
When was the last time your pastor preached about creation…….in seven days?
If you haven’t been hearing about these things, it is possible that you are suffering from Christian myopia……..caused by a poor set of glasses or a filter.
Maybe you need to spend more time with the owners manual.
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Jesus in Matthew 16: 24