All About Perspective

Verse of the day: Joshua 6:2 And the LORD said to Joshua: “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor.

Getting through, and dealing with, most of what we go through in life as born again Christians has everything to do with how we respond. It is amazing how perspective plays such a great part in how we react to life’s challenges. As God’s children, our perspective on life, and all that God may possibly allow, has everything to do with our faith. The one thing that we often forget when we are faced with seemingly impossible challenges is that God’s perspective about the situation or circumstance is far different than ours. Joshua and the Israelites had yet to take the City of Jericho, yet, God says to him, “See! I have given Jericho into your hand”. The walls were still intact, but God saw the situation from the perspective of, “It is done.” In Isaiah 55:8-9 God said, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” While we sometimes panic, stress, and worry about how things will turn out in difficult times, or how we will find a solution, God sees it as already resolved. God already has a solution, and already knows how He will resolve it, but it is usually in a way that we would never think of, even if we had a thousand years to come up with a solution. When God promised that He would give Israel the land of Canaan, from His perspective, it was done. It was their lack of faith that caused the generation that came out of Egypt to forfeit the blessing. We often forfeit the blessings that are hidden within the trials because we lack faith. We miss the blessing of seeing God’s hand at work when we begin to try and manipulate situations to get the outcome we desire, rather that trust God for the outcome He has planned. We miss the blessing of the opportunity to grow in our faith and become more like Jesus in how we view life. Just like God dealt with Joshua on the basis of where they would be and not where they were, God deals with us on the basis of who we will be, not who we are. This is what I mean… When Peter met Jesus in John 1:42 Jesus said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is translated, A Stone). Peter was not yet a stone for Jesus, but Jesus saw him for who he would become. In Acts 1:41 it tells us that about three thousand souls were saved in one day from the Apostle Peter’s preaching; the same Peter who denied Jesus in John 18. God does not see us as eventually inheriting eternal life or Heaven eventually becoming our home. He does not see our problems as eventually being solved. In Christ we already have eternal life. In Christ Heaven is already our home. In Christ, our problems are already solved; it is just that God has chosen not to show us the answer yet. As believers who have eternal life and whose home is already Heaven, we must live a life of hope, knowing that everything God has promised is certain, even though we may not see it with our own eyes at the moment. We may not see the solution to our problems now, but we can see them as resolved if we view them with eyes of faith. When Israel rebelled against God, once again, He delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty year (Judges 13:1). However, in the meantime, He began to put His plan into action with the birth of Samson who would begin to deliver them, as we are told in Judges 13:5. From Israel’s perspective, life might have seemed hopeless because it would take forty years for them to begin to be free from Philistine oppression. Nonetheless, from God’s perspective, it was done. What are we going through today that we are needlessly worrying about? Do we not know that God has already resolved it? Are we going to forfeit the blessings that He is waiting to give us as we patiently, and with faith, walk with Him through whatever the circumstance or situation is? Let us do all that we can to change our perspective from ours to His, and I guarantee that we will begin to see life in a different light.

Today, God extends an invitation to you to accept His gift of salvation (Rom 6:23). Will you accept it? Anyone who calls on Jesus, by faith, in repentance, confessing your sins, will receive eternal life. Do not put off calling on Him, and receive Him and His gift of salvation today (Rom 10:13).