Changing Your Perspective May Change Your Life

Have you ever tried helping someone who is never happy with the situation they’re in?  They’re always looking for something different, something which beyond the shadow of a doubt is going to be a big improvement and the solution to all their problems.  Except when they find that different situation, it turns out they’re no more happy than they were before.

And it’s always someone else’s fault.  The blame may go on everyone from someone’s spouse to their employer to their pastor or — here’s a safe place to place blame — the government. 

Of course, neither you nor I have ever been like that.  Unless maybe you ask someone close to us.  

Paul had a similar situation to deal with in that most problem-free of all churches, the pastor’s paradise of Corinth.  

Nobody was happy with where they were at.  The unmarried wanted to be married.  The married wanted to be unmarried.  The Jews wanted to be Gentiles.  The Gentiles wanted to be Jews.  The slaves wanted to be free.  And if you can believe it, some of the free wanted to be slaves, because in those days it was an all-expenses paid gig that could set you up for a quite a nice lifestyle.

Paul had a one-size-fits-all answer for the lot of them.  Be happy with where you’re at because God has put you there.  I bet that made him popular.

Back in the day when we used to pick strawberries in the summer, it was always a temptation to go from row to row in search of what looked like a more promising patch.  Those who stayed in the same place inevitably filled their containers quicker.

There are lots of reasons why we are discontent.  Sometimes we’re in a legitimately tough situation, one from which we need to pray deliverance.  But often we don’t need deliverance, we need perspective.  God’s perspective.

There are reasons he has placed you and I in the situations we are in.  He is sovereign, after all.  How much better to cooperate with him while he does what he wants through the place or season we are in. 

That requires trust in his goodness and faithfulness, but he shouldn’t have to earn that from us.  He’s already given us everything.

In the end, it comes down to a search for freedom.  We never find freedom because we don’t realize the freedom we already have.  And we forget that the freedom we have is worth more than anything any change in our circumstances could give us.

Try looking at your situation with that perspective.  It may not change your situation, but it may change your life.

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CONSIDER PARTNERING WITH DAVID & ELAINE CAMPBELL IN HELPING TO SUSTAIN THEIR ACTIVE MINISTRY.

The Mystery of Marriage

The creation account in Genesis records that a man leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife, and the two become one. For Paul, writing in Ephesians 5, that is a mystery. In fact, he says, it refers to Christ and the church.

Wherever the New Testament writers uses the word mystery, it’s because they believe God has given revelation or understanding about something that has never been properly or fully understood before. Paul uses it to talk about the gospel coming to the peoples of the world and how God joins Jews and Gentiles together in Christ. In Revelation, the mystery for John is how Christ conquers through suffering, and how our present suffering is actually an assurance of eternal victory.

These things were hard for people to understand. They were mysteries.

The mystery about marriage is this. You can’t understand marriage without understanding Christ and the church.

We shouldn’t be surprised this is the case. The Old Testament prophets talked about God as the husband, and Israel as the (sometimes unfaithful) wife. That is why, when Jesus came, he identified himself as the bridegroom. That was a bold statement, because those listening to him would have recognized it was yet another way Jesus was identifying with Yahweh, claiming to be God.

Here, Paul goes right back to the garden. The mystery is that God designed marriage to reflect something that was in his mind long before marriage existed. It was designed to reflect the relationship God was creating between the real bridegroom and the bride -- between Christ and the church.

This real marriage was planned in the counsel of God long before men and women were ever joined to one another. Human marriage is not what helps us to understand the union of Christ and the church. The union of Christ and the church is what helps us to understand what human marriage is meant to be.

And this is exactly what Jesus understood when he identified himself as the bridegroom and the church as his bride.

And this is why, as Christians, we place such an incredible value on marriage.

Marriage, above every other human relationship, reflects the union of Christ and his church. It gives endless opportunity for the laying down of one’s life, for the giving of love to another, to dying to oneself, for learning more of the agape love Christ showed for his church.

The relationship between Christ and his church lifts marriage to the highest place. It places upon both partners enormous responsibilities. Yet it offers unbelievable blessings.

And it helps to make us ready for that great and climactic moment of all history, when the last chapters of the Bible reveal when the marriage planned before the foundation of the world will comes to its full consummation: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready... And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

So take your eyes off your imperfections and those of your spouse. Set your vision on Jesus instead. His mission is to make your imperfect marriage a reflection of his eternal glory. And to show that glory through your marriage to the world as it watches you - and sees Jesus at work.