What are you looking at? …

Here’s a simple, yet profound fact: You see what you’re looking at.

That’s why we miss so much of what’s immediately around us, and even more of that which is at a distance.

For example, did you know that for less than $200.00 per month five widows and 15 orphans living in Kenya can have two meals daily of rice, maize and beans? Probably not, because you may not have seen the need. A friend of mine through social media regularly travels to Kenya to minister there, so he’s seen the need and regularly posts photos and information so others can see the need also.

But did you know about your neighbor on the same block you live on who can’t afford adequate food, so is also going hungry? Or the neighbor whose marriage is on the rocks and probably won’t last the rest of the year? Or the young person at your church who’s developing relationships with bad influences? Or the co-worker whose home is being foreclosed on by the bank?

Are these any of the things you’re seeing?

Or are you having a hard time seeing past your own front door?

While we see what we’re looking at, it’s our heart and our values that determine what we look for.

Too much of the time we don’t see the needs of others immediately around us, or at a distance, because we don’t care enough to look. Our hearts and values aren’t tuned in sharply enough to look for the needs of others on purpose.

Jesus Christ provides us with a completely opposite example. He was so keenly tuned into our needs that He tailored all of human history around His response to it! And over and over again, we read in the Gospels of how He was moved by the needs of people who crowded in to see Him. The eyes of Jesus were constantly on the needs of others while giving little thought to His own comfort. Even as He looked out over Jerusalem, He looked at the need of those who lived there.

What does that have to do with us? Peter explains in 1 Peter 2:21: “For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.”

If we, as Christians, are going to make a difference in this world in the name of Christ, we have to see the world, and the people in it, through His eyes. To do that, we have to let Him shape our heart and transform our values into His so that we care like He cares. Then we will see as He sees, and respond with the heart of Christ.

So, what are you looking at?

Scotty