Day 24: Ephesians 4:11-15
Ephesians 4:11-15: And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of man, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all thing into Him who is the head-Christ-
It’s All About Perspective
I have been working as a government contractor for almost 25 years, working on the same contract. As a contractor, only legal Federal holidays are acknowledged as legitimate holidays. When it comes to the Christmas season, contractors look forward to Christmas falling on Friday thus having the day after fall on a weekend and being off. That did not happen this year, Christmas fell on a Thursday making Friday a work day unless you applied for and had approved vacation. I did not; I went to work. My routine for work consists of coming to work an hour or more ahead of official start time and having my daily time with God to start my day. On Friday, December 26th at 7AM I was asked by a colleague, “So, is this your second Monday of the week or your second Friday?”
This same colleague on Christmas Eve day asked me what I was reading when he came into work. He said, “Just give me the short version.” So I told him I was reading about perspective; “Two types to be specific, mine and God’s.”
My answer to his question on Friday the 26th was, “It’s my second Friday, and I’ve been given two this week!” He smiled and said, “Yes, it’s all about perspective!”
We all have a different way of viewing things, whether we are looking at things “In the long run” or we are making “Mountains out of mole hills.” As Christians our desire should be that our perspective be conformed to His.
The Bible has many instances about how perspectives can be blurred or simply isn’t what it should be. Mark chapter 8 gives the account of a blind man given sight but at first it was blurred. We too, when Christ touched our lives we began to see as Christ sees. The more time we spend with God the more clearly we will see. The more we gain God’s perspective.
Elijah was derailed with God’s perspective by discouragement. Paul lost a dear friend, Demas, because Demas lost his vision to worldliness. Naomi allowed bitterness to affect her perspective due to the losses in life. Moses vision was blurred by anger because of Israel’s murmuring. Stress greatly affects our perspective and we lose sight of what God has planned for us. Rehoboam is a prime example of how peer pressure blurs our perspective. Jonah’s vision was clearly blurred by prejudice against the people of Nineveh. Last but not least, if we do not pursue growing and developing in God’s perspective our perspective will become blurred by stagnation and we will become “blind, and cannot see far off”(2 Peter 1:9).
Clearly the more time we spend with Christ the more our perspective will be made as His. We must learn to run to seek God’s face when dealing with a situation and ask for forgiveness when we have gone astray. Doing so will remove the blinding effects and give us a fresh Godly perspective.
Lord, open our eyes to see the wonderful things of your Word. Give us eyes to see as you see, ears to hear the cries as you hear them and give us your strength to press on in your ways. Amen.
Contributed by Colleen
