"Jesus glasses" bring the world into focus as God sees it. (Photo by Lena Taranenko on Unsplash)
Special to United Methodist Insight | Aug. 6, 2026
What if you borrowed God’s eyes and started wearing Jesus glasses? How would you see the world, the Nation, your Country, your neighbor and your church?
J.B.Phillip’s classic and wonderful book, “Your God is Too Small” helped open my eyes to see a “bigger God” – A God of unfathomable love, grace and forgiveness for this world.
God created the Universe
“In the beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth and they were without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Genesis 1: 1-2.
God created this void of nothing into an amazing Universe, so vast it is impossible even now to know the depths and the expansion.
God created over time, perhaps millions of years, this strange creature called man and women, you and me, filled with intricacies too hard to imagine. His creatures are us, Human beings…A complicated living Being, that’s us!
What did he see? Do you think God did all this just accidently? Did he do this with purpose?
God is a God of history and we are not alone
What’s God our Creator like and how do we know or understand what and who God is? God also acts in history.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord And thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul and with all your mind. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in your heart…” Deuteronomy 6: 4-6
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among…Behold the Lamb of God.” John 1
“Jesus is all of God in a human body…” Colossians 2:9
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength…Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these…” Matthew 12:30-31
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” Luke 23:34
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will never die.” John 11:26
Christian attributes and understanding of God and Christ
God is Creator, filled with Agape Love (selfless, unconditional and sacrificial love) for all. He loves this world, he understands the spirit of rebellion, he understands broken relationships, he understands hurt, pain, hunger, disease, & the importance of relationships. He he loves you whether you are White or Black, Asian, or Hispanic, Japanese, Chinese, Russian or Ukrainian, LGTBQ+, young or old … God loves us as a Father or Mother loving their children. We are family.
“The ‘cross’ was the moment when something happened as a result of which the world became a different place, inaugurating God’s future plan. The revolution began then and there: Jesus’s ‘resurrection’ was the first sign that it was underway.” – NT Wright, “The Day the Revolution Began.” Jesus sacrificial love and death began the revolution.
Borrowing God’s eyes and wearing Jesus glasses is allowing His Holy Spirit to change you, to look at your neighbor, your world, and the universe, as part of God’s revolution to bring His Kingdom now and the future.
How are you using God’s eyes and your new Jesus glasses?
How do we borrow “God’s eyes and Jesus’s lens” to cast our nets into the religionist controversy and division, of social issues that divide us and national challenges of prejudices, growing hatred, racism and intolerance, social injustices and exclusions, transgender and LGTBQ+ ostracizing, poverty, Immigration, Climate control, women’s healthcare rights, and so much more? Addressing world issues of division, war,(and the threat of nuclear war), and the inhumanity and genocide of the killings in Israel, Gaza/Palestine, Ukraine and so much more? How do we become transformed and transformers?
United Methodist Bishop James Thomas a well-known and historic African American Bishop assigned to Iowa in 1969 decided to display a wonderful, exciting and challenging message for his annual Conference held in 1971 in Des Moines, Iowa. He had displayed throughout the conference hall large banners with a picture of Jesus in contemporary carpenter clothing and a goatee of a 30+ worker with his hands held out “touching” the world’s problems then in the ‘70s but still familiar today: Racism, Poverty, Drugs, Climate, Crime, & Nuclear war and seeking World Peace I was there, it helped change my life and my faith. The Bishop’s message then and now was to “borrow God’s eyes and wear Jesus glasses to care for a needy world.”
The bishop used Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theme “The Man for Others.” “The church is the church only when it exists for others ... The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary life by helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling, what it means to live in Christ, to exist…God does not repay evil for evil. No judgment, no abuse, but blessing ... Blessing means laying one's hand on something and saying, ‘despite everything, you belong to God.’ This is what we do with the world that inflicts such suffering on us. We do not abandon it; we do not repudiate, despise or condemn it. Instead, we call it back to God, we give it hope, we lay our hand on it and say: may God's blessing come upon you, may God renew you … We have received God's blessing in happiness and in suffering.” Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Letters from Cell 92, April 30, 1944, He was hanged at age 39 in a Nazi Concentration camp on April 9, 1945.
Bishop Thomas was stirred on by John Wesley: “Do all the good you can by all the means you can in all the places you can at all the times you can to all the people you can as long as ever you can.” “The world is my parish.” “The best of it is, God is with us.” John Wesley borrowed God’s eyes and almost daily wore Jesus glasses to show compassion to the outsider, the prisoner, and the outcast.
In an article I wrote for our well-known national newsletter United Methodist Insight, “Holy Ship! Holy Spirit! And Holy Shift!” I quote Rev. Rodrigo Cruz from his sermon of the same title, given at the First National Conference of our United Methodist’s amazing initiative, Fresh Expressions, in Charlotte NC in February 2024 to reach outside of the church walls. I wrote: “He reminded the crowd of over of John Wesley’s love. He was thankful for Wesley’s travel by ‘Holy Ship’ to America and for the ‘Holy Spirit’ guiding us through this historic turbulence with the church and the world.
“Rev. Cruz concluded by describing a ‘Holy Shift’ needed change of attitude from exclusion to inclusion, from traditional ways of being the church (inherited church) to new deeply spirit-led fresh ways to reach our neighbors. He described the shift as a movement from buildings and restrictive walls to being the church showing love, evangelism and mission ‘outside those walls’ of doctrinal constraints and policies often with closed and fearful attitudes.”
Rev. Cruz wore Jesus glasses as he inspired us with his spirit filled message.
Can you Imagine helping others in “borrowing God’s Eyes and Jesus Glasses” to see our communities and our world in a new light? How about our leaders and church members? Our United Methodists held an important 21st Century General Conference this past April and May 2024 in Charlotte, NC. How important for our decision-makers, our delegates, and members from all over the world it is to, “Borrow God’s Eyes and put on Jesus Glasses.” to see the direction for our Church Universal.
I was there as a volunteer and I can tell you our UMC Council of Bishops President Thomas Bickerton and our new President, Tracy Malone then had borrowed God’s eyes and were wearing Jesus Glasses as they preached inspiring and honest love filled messages to the vast audience. I saw the impacts-the Holy Spirit changing lives.
How about others wearing Jesus glasses? How about our National leaders, our new President and his administration, and our Congress? Our political leaders? How about our governors, state leadership, business leaders, our police departments, our public and private school administrators, our state, federal, Supreme Court judges, and other national and international leaders? Others? By no means a national theocracy, but a compassionate, loving unconditional acceptance of inclusion, not exclusion, and the ultimate view in our nation’s and our people’s lives for the ‘common good.’ Borrowing God’s Eyes and Jesus glasses can be a new direction for us all.
Christians, we must stay involved in borrowing God’s eyes and wearing Jesus glasses not only in our churches but our neighborhoods, our states, nation and the world. We have a “big God’ and with Jesus “the revolution of love and sacrifice” has begun. As Jesus was a “Man for Others, so must we be.
Gene Buccelli
United Methodist layman Eugene Buccelli lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.