Our Father's eyes

How does God look at our world and how does He deal with our world? When He originally created it, He saw that it was a good and perfect place. Then humanity chose to place their wants and wishes above God’s commands and authority and the world was no longer good and perfect. There then came a time when the world was so full of evil that God felt compelled to destroy what was once good and perfect except for eight who believed and seized hold of God's deliverance. God asked Noah to tell those around him about the coming destruction and offer them the safety of the ark. The people of that day, like Adam and Eve, chose to trust in their own authority, ideas, wishes and perhaps their culture and society rather than in God’s authority and provided way of deliverance resulting in their destruction. Many probably didn’t believe what they were told of the coming destruction. Only the eight survived. The Exodus generation of Jews were offered the Promised Land but chose to believe 10 who said it was impossible rather than the 2 who said God has said He would give us this land. As a result the offer was withdrawn from that generation and given to the Wilderness generation who accepted the offer. Only the two who believed would be allowed into the Promised Land. Even though the people repented and were forgiven, God still allowed the punishment to stand. God told His people the land was theirs but that they would only be allowed to enjoy the land and receive blessings from Him if they kept His commandments and especially did not go after the pagan gods of the land. A long cycle of forgetting and remembering ensues through the times of the Judges and the Kings. Finally, enough was enough and God sent His people into captivity for their persistent worship of idols. At the end of their captivity, they were restored to the land and to this day the Jewish people do not worship idols made by man. God provided the Law to show Israel how much they needed Him yet the only thing the Law really did was show just how feeble their efforts were at trying to reach God. So God sent a more perfect sacrifice in Christ so that all could be restored to God. Our day is somewhat like the days just before the flood; people would by and large still rather trust in their own ideas, wishes and especially in culture and society rather than take the deliverance provided by God. There are many Noahs out there telling of God’s ways and His deliverance. Unlike the original Noah however, we face much more than ridicule. The stakes are a bit higher this time because the deliverance is not a boat made by human hands but God himself. With such love on display, Satan has increased his attacks beyond mere ridicule to include death for some who proclaim God’s Word.
So back to our original question. God sees a world of broken people that He loved enough to die for even while they were estranged and enemies. Because He is eternally the same, neither His definitions of sin nor His love for people has changed. He still punishes wrongdoing even while providing Grace and restoration. Because we as Christ followers are to be transformed into the image of Christ we should be seeing our world with the very eyes of God. We should interact with our world as Christ interacted with our world. While He was on this earth He called sin sin and did not change the definition to accomodate society or culture. He rebuked sin sometimes sternly and sometimes with love. When Christ interacted with those called "sinners" by the religious leaders, we see that the sinners changed and came into agreement with God not the other way around. So we should see our world's brokenness. We should not change God’s definitions of sin to suit cultural and societal whims or put the Word of God in a place under that of man’s ideas. We should see that those around us are as we once were , in dire need of God and His deliverance. We should show them love in spite of their flaws and sin. We should not look down on them. We should not excuse their sin or call it something else. We should love them with God's love. Amy Grant had a song "My Father's Eyes" that was quite popular. The narrator in the song had one desire and that was to see the world around her with her Father's eyes. I wonder how many of us desire to see our world through the whole lens of our Father's eyes and not just the parts of His sight that we like?