Daily Archives: March 15, 2019

MOLLY AND ME – PERSPECTIVE

Christian Life, ,

MOLLY AND ME – PERSPECTIVE

Molly is approximately 28cm tall at the shoulder while I am 1.52m tall. It stands to reason, therefore, that her perspective on her world is very different from mine. She sees everything around her at almost ground level. That means that she see perceives her world and everything in it as much bigger than her! It’s no wonder she has a very loud and persistent bark! Everything and everyone unfamiliar to her is a threat to her safety.

Just recently, shortly after we went to bed, our world was rocked by a series of vicious thunder storms – five in a row. Poor Molly couldn’t contain her bark. She was thoroughly unsettled by hideous noises from above that she could not identify. She finally settled down after the noise abated and the rain fell in torrents.

Molly lives in a world of interesting and curious smells and sights at ground level. She explores her world mainly with her nose and eyes. Her hearing is acute and anything unfamiliar out of sight or smell is to be treated as an enemy and barked at until it is identified as friend or foe.

I am her security. Much of her barking also has to do with being my protector. When I am out and she is home alone, she considers herself to be off duty. She doesn’t move out of her bed, or from my chair or make a sound until I return. The moment she sees me at the gate, she comes alive. It’s as though she has an on/off switch which comes into action when my car leaves the property.

Actually, the roles are reversed. I am her protector. I have to monitor her on our walks because she doesn’t recognise potential danger. I have to watch that she doesn’t try to take on anything too big for her to handle, or eat anything not good for her. My perspective concerning her is far more accurate than hers!

This reminds me that my perspective on my own life is just as limited as Molly’s is on hers. My world view is full of dangers and insecurities as long as I look at life through my own eyes. Circumstances are either comfortable or threatening as I interpret them. This makes life very uncertain and the future unknown.

However, in Christ, my worldview is very different. I view everyday life, not from the ground up but from above. When I believed in Jesus and received Him as my Lord – my supreme authority – I died with Him and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, I was raised to a new life and seated with Him in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6).

Now I have a choice. I can continue to look at life through the lens of uncertainty and insecurity as the world does, or I can believe God’s word and live in the certainty that Jesus Christ is Lord regardless of what happens on the ground.

As for me, I have chosen to make God’s word the lens through which I view life and everything, good or bad it dishes up to me.

And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love                                       Him, who have been called according to His purpose. (Rom. 8:28)

Since you, then, have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:1-3).                                                                                 

Only through the worldview of Jesus’ sovereignty can I experience the peace of God that transcends understanding as I follow and trust Him every moment of every day.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – JESUS, CORNERSTONE

Bible Study, ,

JESUS, CORNERSTONE

“With that, Peter,  full of the Holy Spirit, let loose: ‘Rulers and leaders of the people, if we have been brought to trial today for helping a sick man, put under investigation regarding this healing, I’ll be completely frank with you — we have nothing to hide. By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the One you killed on a cross, the One God raised from the dead, by means of His name this man stands before you healthy and whole. Jesus is the ‘stone you masons threw out, which is now the cornerstone.’ Salvation comes no other way; no other name has been given or will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this one.'”  Acts 4:8-12 (The Message).

Now the fat’s in the fire!

Peter could not have stated his case more clearly or thrown down the gauntlet more emphatically than he did at that moment! His words were loaded with truth, courage, boldness, conviction and challenge. He, a Galilean fisherman with no more training than three years with Jesus, was standing before the highest and most powerful religious court in the land and indicting them!

It’s history repeating itself. Only a few months before, Jesus had stood before the same court on trial for His life; yet He was the real judge and the court the accused. Now His followers were in the same position. It was religion going head-to-head with truth all over again.

Jesus had promised His disciples: ”’These signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands, and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.'” Mark 16:17-18 (NIV).

The unseen kingdom of God had once again become visible through a miracle of God’s love and grace which had set a man free from the chains of disability. Everything imperfect is evidence that we are still living in captivity to a fallen world. Jesus brought with Him the good news that it would not remain like that forever. Little did these arrogant religious bullies realise that they had played a part in putting God’s plan into action by sentencing the innocent Son of God to death.

Wherever the apostles went, they heralded and demonstrated the power of this kingdom that would one day take over all the kingdoms of the world and restore all of creation to its original perfection. This would inevitably lead to a clash between God’s kingdom and the kingdoms of this world over which the prince of this world presides for now.

Peter insisted that the ‘stone the builders rejected, was now the cornerstone’ of this building Jesus was working on – a spiritual temple built out of living stones, every person who trusted in Him for salvation, not in the puny and futile ‘righteousness’ the religious leaders were so proud of and so confident in.

The problem in our world is that the bold confidence in asserting this truth is interpreted as ‘religious intolerance’ and ‘hate speech’. In some countries, even those who pride themselves on being ‘free’ will arrest those  who do not comply.  According to the opinion of the world, all religions are equal, and that may be true if we consider that Jesus did not come to found a new religion but to reveal the Father and to open the way for mankind to be reconciled to Him.

So we, who believe in Jesus, continue to assert that He is the cornerstone and that there is no other name by which we must be saved because He alone is the mirror image of God and the way to the Father. All over the world, governments and individuals are killing the messengers but they cannot kill the message because truth is indestructible.