How You View
How You View Is How You Do. The perspectives of abundance and scarcity can both be correct. One brings joy! The other can produce want. Perspective matters.
A father put a gold watch in one son's stocking and manure in the other son's...
The first son responded, “Dad, I'm unsure what to do with this watch. It's fragile, and I don't really wear watches. I don't like it."
Minutes later, the second son came running to his father excitedly and said, "Dad! I think Santa brought me a pony! Now I just have to go find it!"
Perspective is a powerful tool! It can be dangerous to build one on assumptions, though, because perspectives can become strongholds if they remain unchecked by the truth of the gospel.
2 Corinthians 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
Wrong perspectives can become strongholds. They can shape opinion and behavior. They affect how we relate to God and others. We should subject our perspectives to the gospel. Thoughts need to be brought captive to the obedience of Christ. Embracing thoughts that are contrary to the gospel that declares the obedience of Jesus as our means of righteousness is disobedience.
The enemy wants a believer to have more confidence in their strength and willpower than they do in the finished work of Christ.
The two-letter word “OF” in 2 Corinthians 10:5 is huge. Many read that passage as saying bringing every thought into captivity to an obedience to Christ. But that is not what it says.
Then we read that we will punish all disobedience when our obedience is full. It is saying that when we learn to pass everything through the filter of Christ’s obedience and stand firm in the security of the righteousness of God, He has made us, we punish all disobedience by eliminating its power over us through faith in Him. Sin and shame cannot gain a foothold over us when we know the power of His righteousness at work in us.
He who knew no sin was made to be sin! He didn’t just take on sin. He became it! Why? So that we might become the righteousness of God in Him! “He became so that we could become.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
It is the great exchange at the cross! Jesus became what we were so we might become what He was. He was righteous by nature. We were sinners by nature. He was made to be sin at the cross so that we could become the righteousness of God! We get to live our lives from the source of a new nature now that we are in Christ!
If you lack this view presented by Scripture, you lack the power to do. How you view is how you do. I encourage you to make certain you view things through the lens of the New Covenant Gospel of Jesus, where His obedience is magnified, His finished work is rejoiced over, and we are complete in Him. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know!
