"Point of View"

"LORD, I have hoped for thy salvation, and done thy commandments." (Psalms 119:166)

  This is quite simply the way it needs to be; we cannot have one without the other: We must be, with all certainty, Won and Done! Matthew Henry puts it like this: "The more lively the hope is the more lively the obedience will be." When you examine the word, "hope," you find that to be the meaning, to examine, To Look At! It it something that we must inspect, both from the view of earth to heaven, and from heaven to our hearts. In other words, we are not just looking at where we long for, but we examine what it is that God has done in us. To make this point even sharper still, the meaning of the word, "salvation," is that of victory or deliverance; "that which is delivered safe!" Yes, God is one day going to point to us, but right now, we are pointing to Him! It is all His doing and we must be looking at it with all excitement and anticipation for what it is that He has done, is doing, and will do in our lives; that is how hope becomes lively, it is alive! But you might ask, How do we look at what God will do, especially when we can hardy grasp what He is doing? Thus be the title of this post; it is all based upon our point of view. Where are we looking and what are we looking for? "Keep your eyes on Jesus!" There is absolutely nothing more important than the thing that matters most, because He has finished the work that we struggle to finish day in and day out. Another way to look at this is to imagine yourself being in a special Spaceship that is headed into eternity. That Ship is Christ Jesus and He has not only placed you in it, but just as He had done for Noah and his family, He has shut the door and made you safe! One of the things that the Lord reminded me of this morning was part of the prayer He taught His disciples to pray, the part that says, "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." The kingdom of God is likened to that! It is God's will that you make it into Heaven...

"Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves of sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:5-11) NLT