Today’s household object may not be present for everyone, since it depends on a person’s vision! The object is spectacles (glasses) and the Bible passage is 2 Peter 1:5-11.
In this passage, Peter urges us to add to our faith goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection and love. Possessing these qualities, he says, will keep us from being ineffective and unproductive in our knowledge of Jesus; without these qualities, we are nearsighted and blind, forgetting that we have been cleansed from our past sins.
To be nearsighted is to struggle to see what is right under our noses, and is something that usually happens as we get older. Even people who have had perfect vision when younger may struggle with near-sightedness as they get older, needing ‘reading glasses’ in later life. I have been short-sighted most of my life, struggling to see objects at a distance, and so have needed glasses since the age of five. Whatever our visual problem, spiritually we often fail to see what God is doing in our lives and in our world. We tend to focus on what we can see naturally, failing to understand that He calls us to live by faith and not by sight. (2 Cor 5:7)
Peter reminds us that character is more important than possessions and that to live without a constant awareness of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus will render us unproductive in spiritual matters. We need the daily reminder of God’s love from His word and to spend time with Him reminding ourselves of what really matters if we are to be fruitful and productive for God.