What's Your Point of View?

It seems as though the days of health, wealth and prosperity are behind us (at least for now). It is so easy for Christ followers to slip into the same mindset and mentality that those without faith have. We can get negative and pessimistic. Bad things happen to us or those close to us and we become perpetuators of the doom and gloom mentality. When Christ was sharing with the disciples of the terrible suffering and death forthcoming, Peter reacted as I am sure many of us would have. The NLT says that Peter “reprimanded” him. Can you imagine? What boldness! Peter had been there when Jesus healed multitudes of people. Peter had witnessed the power of Jesus over nature. Peter had even seen Jesus demonstrate his power over the spiritual realm. And yet, he felt it necessary to tell Jesus, “I don’t think so!” Christ’s response to Peter is a great reminder for us today. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” (Matthew 16:23b) When we see or hear of negative things happening around us, what point of view are we looking at the situation from? We need to pray and ask the Lord to give us the wisdom to see things from his perspective. For without the terrible suffering and death, there would have been no resurrection! “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 Click here for a great sermon on the topic “When God Doesn’t Make Sense,” by Dr. Tim Deatrick, Lead Pastor at Ashworth Road.