Perspective

Hello everyone. I would like to explain that on this channel I will be sharing about a number of topics from the Word of God. But I think it is important that we first have some perspective. So in this session I would like to create that perspective: what I am sharing about, why I am sharing it, and what it is all about.

If I can sum it up, the perspective we need to have is this: it is all about God.

It might sound simple, even self-explanatory. But when you talk to people around you – and let’s say you speak to Christians – you will often notice something: it is as if everything is about them. The questions they ask, the things they want to learn from the Word of God, the things they need help with – everything is about them.

It is as if the perspective is missing that it is all about God. We need to realise that, and it is not something we can argue away. God doesn’t exist for us; we exist for Him. That means we should notice what we want to learn about and what questions we have. Is it about God and wanting to know Him more? Is it about understanding why He created us, what He created us for, and how we fulfil that?

It is very dangerous when people’s questions are all about themselves and what they want, because you often find that theology starts to revolve around that: “What can I get from God? What can I expect from God, and how do I get it?” Now, don’t misunderstand me. There are principles in the Word of God about how we access what God has given us. But the perspective must be that it is not firstly about us. It is firstly about Him.

So we need to look again at how we read the Word of God and how we see our interaction with God. God is not in our employment. He is not a genie in a lamp: we rub the lamp, God pops out and does things for us, and once we are happy with everything He has done, we want to put the genie back in the lamp – because it is fine if He does something for me, as long as He doesn’t start expecting something from me.

We need to evaluate that and start asking, “What is it that God wants from me?” If my focus becomes what God wants from me, it starts changing a lot of things.

We have to understand that we reason with the intellectual ability we have, but it is limited. Some of us might not think so, but it is limited.

God is not a man. He is beyond us. He is God, He is a Spirit, and the spiritual realm preceded the physical realm. So there is authority, ability and a superiority that we need to acknowledge, and we must not think that God is limited to what we can understand or process. Even when we think we know a lot about God, there is more, and more, and more – He is not stagnant. He is God, and He is beyond us.

I would like to read to you from Numbers 23:19:

“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

Numbers 23:19 (NKJV)

Sometimes it is good to step back from what we are doing and how we are thinking, and to acknowledge again some of the foundational principles: God is God. Not only is He not a man – He is the most superior being that exists. We can’t function as if we can summarise, analyse and document everything concerning God. You can’t put God in a box and say, “He’s contained; I understand everything.”

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever.”

Romans 11:33-36 (NKJV)

He is God, and we need to have that perspective.

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.”

Isaiah 40:28 (NKJV)

It is to lay the foundation of understanding that He is God, and of how He functions: He is superior to our understanding.

Philippians 4 also says to us:

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 4:7 (NKJV)

There is a peace of God that has been poured out in Christ Jesus, and we can receive it, embrace it and function in it – but it is beyond our understanding. Where our understanding functions at its highest level and comes to the place where it stops, we know that beyond that there is more in God.

So my prayer in this short session is that the Holy Spirit will reveal to you and bring a conviction to you that He is God. When the Holy Spirit brings that conviction in our hearts, we start to function differently. We start to look differently at our interaction with God: what He expects from us, and what we can expect from Him.

If we have that relationship right – He is God, He is Lord, He is King, and I am servant, I am child – then your perspective is different. If you have a child, you expect the child to interact with you in a certain way, and if he doesn’t, there might be implications; you might discipline him. In the same way, God expects us to interact with Him in a certain way. We don’t make the rules. He is God. He has determined how the godly order functions, starting with the fact that He is God, the Creator of heaven and earth.

I am not denying that there are scriptures in the Word of God that explain that we have received the Spirit of God, who knows everything about God, and that this Spirit will guide us, show us things, teach us, equip us and activate things in us – a power in us beyond our own ability. I acknowledge all of that, and we will get to some of those aspects. But here we are talking foundationally: who is it firstly about, and what should our relationship look like?

We have been created to glorify Him. We have been created to fill this earth with His presence. God has a purpose with this earth, and He has a purpose with me in this earth – but I need to acknowledge that ultimately it is all about Him.

There is a scripture that is often used, about Christ in me, the hope of glory.

“To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Colossians 1:27 (NKJV)

What if we understand that I am not meant to be the focus? It is not me who is the hope of glory – it is Christ. But God has made us vessels, able to contain and facilitate the presence of God and His glory, and to manifest it in this earth.

So I often ask: maybe we should change the nuance just a little. Christ in me, the hope of glory – yes. But what if I say, me in Christ, the hope of glory? It shifts the perspective slightly, to understand that it is all about Him. The glory that is in me – Christ in me, the hope of glory – is there to achieve what the Father has sent us for: to manifest His presence and His glory in this earth.

We received it for a reason. Verse 28 continues: “Him we preach.” It is all about Him, all about His ability, all about what He wants to achieve: to fill this earth with His presence and His glory. It is a glorious privilege that He has made us instruments to do it, but it is still all about Him, and it is still all by the power of God that has been put inside us.

“…and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.”

Romans 9:23-24 (NKJV)

We have been made vessels to carry His presence and His glory, to manifest His presence and show forth His glory.

“Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth.”

Psalm 96:9 (NKJV)

All the earth. It is all about Him. We have been created to worship Him, to praise Him and to glorify Him. It is all about His purpose in the earth. And if we have that perspective, it changes everything. The road might look similar, but the way we interact, what we are looking for and our priorities start to change when we know it is all about Him.

“…who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.”

2 Timothy 1:9 (NKJV)

Here we get a definite confirmation that it is all about the purpose God has, and that He has called us for it. The great thing is that we can know God has a vested interest in our success, because He has called us for His purpose, to show forth His glory. I can anchor my significance in this earth in the fact that God has called me and created me for a purpose, and that I can live out that purpose here.

The amazing thing is that the Word explains the character of God – who He is and how He functions – so we don’t have to guess. We don’t have to build our understanding of God on what other people tell us, or even on our experiences in this world. The Word of God must be the foundation. If I have any question about who God is or how He functions, I need to go back to the Word of God and see how God functions.

God has put spiritual principles in place, and they always work – like physical laws such as gravity. There are things we expect God to come and do, but God doesn’t necessarily function that way. He has put spiritual principles in place that always function, and we need to understand them, respond to them and adhere to them. Then we will start seeing the results of those principles. But that is probably a different topic.

I will be sharing a lot on this channel, and some of it will be very specific, on a single topic. I can’t give this perspective every time, so I wanted to share the reason for this channel: for me, it is first and foremost about God. It is all about Him, all by Him and all for Him.

I trust this helps you gain some perspective, so that whatever else you watch on this channel, you keep in mind that it is all about God. My intention is to keep the focus on Him. The Word says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, so I trust that the Holy Spirit will make the Word we share here alive in you and that it will bear fruit.

Have a blessed day. Chat to you soon.