Looking Through His Eyes

Have you ever gone to buy a gift and as you were making the selection thought of the worthiness of the person you were buying it for? Or have you ever received a request for help and you just knew the person receiving the help wasn’t deserving of the energy. Then there is the homeless person we have all seen on the corners of streets everywhere who ask us for money, I am sure some of us have been reluctant (to say the least) to open our wallets because we just knew he was going to spend our hard earned money on alcohol or drugs.To take it to the church I am sure some of us have even wondered how some people deserve to be healed or saved when we know the kind of life they have led. We also know that they are more than likely going to stray back into that life once they have been blessed, helped, saved, or healed. And if it was up to us, they surely wouldn’t be the recipients of anything good when there are so many more in this world who are more deserving.When did it become ok for us to make judgments on a person’s worthiness or deservingness of help or charity? When were placed in charge of discerning who was worthy of something, that we are oftentimes not worthy of receiving. Who are we to withhold Jesus’ charity or demonstration of his love? Some would say that if only he knew, he would understand. I tell you he does know and he does understand.Often when Jesus was faced with the large multitudes who demanded his attention he would sit and minister to them. And in looking through the accounts of Jesus’ life, I have yet to find the place where it says that he separated the crowd into the worthy group and the unworthy group. Where we think we have the ability to profile someone and know what they will do with our charity, Jesus actually did have the ability to not only see the person in front of him, but to also know what they had done in their past and what they would do in their future (he was God after all). If humanity was still the same wicked flesh it is today, don’t you think that there were people who would take the blessings Jesus had for them for granted. Don’t you think there were people who would walk away healed who didn’t even offer as much as a thank you to the one who healed them? There had to be people who were delivered from bondage who went right back to the activities that got them bound in the first place. The hard part for some of us to understand is that Jesus knew this about people and still ministered and blessed them anyway. Jesus did it for one reason and one reason only—He loved the people.He really saw the people as the flock of sheep without a shepherd and served as that shepherd. The one that cared for each sheep, knew them each by name, and longed to protect and care for each one. He loved the people for who they were, where they came from. Each one was special to Him.It’s hard for me, even where I am today, to think of loving everyone like that. The kind of love that Jesus had for the people (good or bad) was unconditional. It was the kind of love that would eventually lead him to the cross to die for a people that were completely undeserving of the gift he gave. It means looking at the outcasts of society and asking what can I do to help as opposed to wondering what they did to get there. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I want to be more like the shepherd I follow every day. I am ready to see people like he sees them and to love them like he loves them.Father help to see people the way you see them and help me to love them with the same kind of love that you love me with. In your name Jesus I pray. Amen