Perspective


Years ago I had a vision in the night.  I saw a man tending a garden in the back yard of his residence in a residential neighborhood.  I saw him from a position several hundred feet above the garden.

It was evening, and the man was casually tending his garden as the sun faded away in the West.

I also saw a huge tsunami wave of water approaching the man's neighborhood from about a mile away.  It was relentlessly bearing down on the man, his garden and everything in the wave's path, but the man was unaware of the tsunami or the danger it represented.

Then I awoke.

I immediately asked Jesus what the vision meant.  I received no clear answer.

Last week (end of December, 2015) I received a letter from George Otis, Jr. to all of his teammates in the Sentinel Group entitled "Not All Wrapping Is Good".

The message in the letter rang a bell with me because it was very similar to the tsunami vision I wrote about above.

And then I received the answer to my prayer for the meaning of the vision.

The answer is this:  Safety and effectiveness depend on perspective.  If a person sees things only from his or her own perspective, he has limited awareness of everything beyond the scope of his or her vision, is in danger of unknown circumstances, and only does what he or she believes is right to do.  But if a person seeks to obtain God's perspective of all matters of life, one can gain all the awareness he or she needs to do God's will and to please Him in every respect, and to be safe from the dangers of life.

Then verses of Christian Scripture began to come to my mind.  I thought of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 3, in which he declares that those who follow human leaders and not Jesus Himself do so because they are 'carnal'.

Of course Paul does not take the time to define carnality or give a remedy, but eventually that comes out of his writings in 2 Corinthians 5:15:

(ESV)  and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.

Every real Christian knows that Jesus died to pay for our sins, but it seems that few know that He died and rose again to enable us to stop living for ourselves that we might begin to live for Jesus, and through Jesus to live for our Heavenly Father!!

The fact of this ignorance is a clear indication that receiving Jesus into one's heart does not automatically result in one receiving God's perspective in all matters of life.

In another of Paul's writings he states that, "we have the mind of Christ".  1 Corinthians 2:16

This begs the question, "who is included in 'we' in his statement?  I have heard teachers teach that every Christian has the mind of Christ because of this statement, but I suspect that it only applies to Paul and anyone else who has asked Jesus for His perspective of everything, and does not apply to anyone who has not asked Jesus for a change of perspective.

If you, dear reader, are able to read on, may I direct your attention to:

Hebrews 5:15  For indeed, although you ought to be teachers by this time, again you have need for someone to teach you what are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

Proverbs 3:5  Trust Yahweh with all your heart; do not lean toward your own understanding.

Luke 1:53  He has filled those who are hungry with good things, and those who are rich he has sent away empty-handed.

James 4:6  But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

I believe that the time has come for every member of the Body of Christ, without exception, to stop leaning on our own ways so that we can begin to trust the Lord with all of our hearts.

The time has come to humble ourselves before God in order to receive all the grace we need to do His will rather than our own wills.

I could go on and on, but will now cut to the heart of this message and the virtually untapped hope for us all.

So here, dear reader, is my prayer for you, me, and every creature:

Heb 13:20-21  Now may the God of Peace Who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the Sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.