We’re going to talk about perspective in a minute, but first I want read through a passage from Romans 8:1-17 (excerpted) from The Message Translation. I got so excited when reading it that I had to share it with you. It’s gorgeous.
1-2Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
3-4God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. …
And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. …
12-14. … God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children.
There’s one particular verse that I want to look at more closely, and you may be more familiar with it in the NASB translation. It’s Roman’s 8:15.
15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
The word translated here as “received” denotes action in its original context — to lay hold of, to take with the hand, to take up to carry, to take & make for one’s own. They all have active participation! Yes, there is still the meaning of giving, but there is active involvement in the receiving, a reaching out and claiming for ourselves. We put out our hands and touch that spirit we are going to receive, and sometimes we’ve taken hold of the one that was not intended for us to hold.
Do we sometimes lack proper perspective and take hold of fear as our inheritance instead of adoption? If you fight the same temptation I do, maybe you’ve grabbed fear around the neck a few times and kept staring it in the face so it didn’t get away and go somewhere you couldn’t see what it was up to. Staring at the fear can be a great and wonderful thing so we know what’s going on, but if we get stuck there, stuck where we only see that and lose perspective of the larger part of things, that is not so great and wonderful. I don’t always do that, but sometimes things come up that get me wrapped around the altar & I know I need God to give me a new perspective — to back me up and show me the world through the eyes of Christ instead of my own.
He can be very personal in this process. I’ve had some perspective shifts that absolutely assaulted my pride, and then showed a larger picture that was filled with grace. That was exactly what needed to happen, and I think that was exactly the point. But it was some reality check.
For example: I saw a blueberry. God saw a seed to be planted. I had to see myself as much smaller, and not nearly as far along in growth.
FEAR
Sometimes we let that spirit of fear affect how we see and define ourselves. God sees His adopted children as seeds of possibility, as new creations in Christ. How will we to choose to see ourselves in light of that? Still through the fears?
Or will we put down the lens of fear and see ourselves as the seed? Smaller. Small enough for the winds of the Spirit to blow over us and cause us to be moved to a different place? Do we leave behind the places of pride, control, and comfort inherent in our fear state? Do we step out for the riskier places of trust and patience? Do we choose the perspective of the finished fruit of human limitation or the sacred seed not yet planted?
INSTEAD OF FEAR, WE CAN LAY OUR HANDS ON OUR ADOPTION:
We can step forward into a new identity in Christ.
We can be humble enough to see all that went before & begin a process of new growth, knowing dirt may be tossed on our heads and the grace waters coming in to stimulate new growth are probably going to uncover things that we may not want to see. Can we forego who WE THINK we are and strive to be who GODKNOWS we are able to be? Will we trust Him to plant us in the good soil? He will. Jesus loved His privilege as the intimate Son of God the Father into each of us through the Holy Spirit, giving us the right to cry out, Daddy, to God who wants to communicate with us.
We cry out Abba, Father! In Jewish society, Abba was not a casual thing at all, but a very, very intimate term of endearment that also denoted privilege because of how close a relationship would have to be for this to be appropriate.
Holman Bible Dictionary touches on the customs, explaining the offense that using this title inappropriately could cause. Using this term when not really that close to someone was the utmost display of arrogance and presumption. — And yet, THIS is how our Jesus teaches us to view our relationship with God.
Will we trust enough to be that fledgling plant — vulnerable, reaching up, and growing in the possibility found in grace granted to us in Christ Jesus?
Growth possibilities from God’s perspective are big. God has the perspective of the Big Forever, because He is the Big Forever. Because He is the beginning and end, the Owner of all minutes, you can point to any one of yours, whether it’s a past, present or future minute, and He will tell you, HERE I AM. He has the power to be inside and outside of every single minute with you — if you’re crying, mourning, frightened, excited, celebrating, or so happy you can hardly stay in your skin. He’s there… whispering, HERE I AM. Will you dare to listen?
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