When God looks at you, what does He really see?

No, wait. Strike that. Let’s try it this way: Does what you do every day affect the way God sees you? Yes, that’s a little better.  God’s opinion… yes, God’s opinion of me.  Does what I do change God’s opinion of me?  OK, that’s the question I want to ask, so here goes…

Does what I do change God’s opinion of me?  No, darn, that’s still not quite right… Oh!, right, you don’t care about God’s opinion of me, you care about God’s opinion of you!  Right, OK this is the real question… ready? Quiet on the set, roll camera and……. ACTION!

Do the things we do change God’s opinion of us?

Anybody have a guess?  Ah, you all have an answer to that when you go on “knowledge” mode, and that answer is “No!”

The problem is that we normally don’t really believe the answer that we would give in Sunday school. God knows all, so He must remember all.  If He can do that, He can have a spreadsheet in His head, sort of a ledger, and He can see which way things are going, debits and credits and balances. No doubt, he has a tally of our average daily balances, and when we screw up too much, He is ticked off at us and sends trouble our way… and the only way we can get back in favor is by working, serving and sacrificing… getting our accounts back in the black; paying off our overdrafts…

Obviously.

The only problem is… that isn’t the way God thinks… that’s the way we think.

When God looks at us, what he sees are His dear children. He sees the ones for whom Jesus died, because of His great and immeasurable love. He doesn’t see our sins, for if we are in Christ, our sins are gone… yes, they are GONE as in not anywhere to be seen. Well, you ask, “What does God see when He looks at those who are mot in Christ? Ah, yes, a very astute question, dear reader!  What He sees are His dear little ones for whom Jesus died; lost, confused and in need of mercy… so He nudges one of us to go and tell that person (or persons) about the love of Jesus Christ, and Jesus called this “making disciples.” When God looks upon our brother or sister in Christ who needs help in their understanding, or who is hurting for one reason or another, He nudges one of us to help, teach, nurture and or just to love the other Christian; to help him or her along their journey, and Jesus called this “making disciples” also.

We who are in Christ are built up into a Body, a community of love, faith and brotherhood for a purpose, and Jesus called it “making disciples.” You might ask for some clarification of terms here, asking something like, “Hey, what’s all this about making disciples all the time; I thought we were supposed to be loving each other, not doing some project!? ” So many see it that way until they come to realize that to love one another and to make disciples are the same thing; “love” is the What, and “make disciples” is the How, and Jesus gave us a three-year course on what this looks like.

This is another indication of how awesome our Lord really is… He didn’t just save us from sin and death and turn us loose in the wilderness to wander around lost, not sure of what to do or where to go, He gave us instruction as to exactly where to go and what to do: Love your brother and make disciples… do exactly what He did.  This is not to earn favor in His eyes, for you already have it.  It is to share His gift with others, so you will have real and concrete purpose, becoming part of God’s Purpose, which is by far the greatest gift of all.