A View From The Top - Excerpt One
Seeing Life From God's Perspective
Our Spirit is seated in the Heavenlies. (Eph. 2:6 and Eph. 1:20) "Seated" means "made to sit down with". It's in the aorist indicative active tense. The active voice means the action is being taken by the subject of the sentence. That's God. "He seated us." But what's more exciting than that is the rest of the meaning of that word. The aorist tense combined with the indicative mood means that it was an action that took place at a specific point in time. Aorist tense used with any other mood than indicative means that the event is real, but doesn't refer to when it will take place. Do you see what that means? It means, "It's done". We're there. We are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Where is He seated? (Eph. 1:20) Christ is seated at the right hand of God and as believers in Jesus, our spirits are seated there with Him.
When we see with our spirit eyes, we are looking at life and all its problems from where we are seated in Heaven. It's a view from the top.
That view is going to be different from the way we may have seen things in the past. In the earthly view we would look at temptation and say, "Oh, I want it so bad." In the eventual view we might say, "I'll try really hard not to because I know it's wrong." But with the eternal view, we'll say, "Lord, I realize that I'm powerless on my own. But You've promised me I'm dead to sin. I'm going to trust You to live Your life through me and overcome this temptation."
When it comes to sin, we may have responded with an earthly view by saying, "I want to say no, but I just can't." With an eternal view, God turns that around and we say, "I know I can't say no, but I'm going to say NO anyway and trust You to do it in me."
When it comes to our trials and intense suffering, we may see with the earthly view and say, "I know I should trust You, but it hurts so bad. I just can't bear this burden." But the eternal view turns that around and says, "It hurts so bad, but I'm going to trust You. I'm going to let You bear my burden."
I could have looked at the recent death of my precious daddy and said with an earthly view, "I miss him so badly. His death was the most horrible thing I've ever endured." Eventually, however I would have seen some good in it. "It brought our family even closer. He's in heaven now, etc." But the earthly view and the eventual view is not the full TRUTH. Only the eternal view is complete TRUTH. In that view, my daddy did not die last year. He died long before that on the day He was placed in Christ. In June of 2000, he just passed into another phase of his eternal life. God said that the death of His saints is precious in His sight. My daddy is finally at home in Heaven where all is present tense. When I get there it will be as if I've always been there. My spirit is already seated there. Daddy is already fellowshipping with me there.
Do I still miss him? Yes. Do I still cry? Often. But I don't suffer as one who has no hope. In the eternal view, I'm already with Him.
All through the Bible, God pointed to Christ. It's the same way in our lives today. Everything that happens is to draw us to life in Christ. He is the eternal view. His life is eternal. His mind thinks eternally. God allows everything that happens in our lives so that we will be drawn to Christ and an eternal view will be clear to us.
That is why it is so important to allow God to BE our vision, not just to enhance it. When He becomes our vision, we WILL see eternity in everything.
