Gaining the Proper Perspective
Gaining the proper perspectives are for the sole purpose of making the necessary changes towards the renewal process we need which are of great value. Gaining includes and involves perceiving, seeing, listening, understanding, and hearing perspectives and judging the worth and value. Whether they are something of substance and value we can and will agree to add to our lifestyles.
"Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe" (Philippians 3:1).
In the opening of this chapter of Philippians, the Apostle Paul encourages the brethren to rejoice in the Lord, and at the expense of sounding as though he were repeating himself, determined that what he was about to say was not grievous, nor did it merit a what did you say reply, but he unwaveringly resolved that for the sake of the hearer and reader, his words were safety and capable of protection. We receive and accept biblical counsels, principles to be informed and to gain the proper and right perspectives from God's point of view. Why? because we value His mind.
Where no counsel is the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety" (Proverbs 11:14). The Word of God is our counselor through the five-fold ministry gifts, who are at work counseling us and will always lead us to Christ. Where there is safety and where we can take refuge. Every account we embark upon through the Scriptures is given through counselors as the Holy Ghost moved them, and will inform and counsel us in and through Christ Jesus. We must believe that holy men not only spoke but as the Holy Ghost moved them, but also their words still are speaking today and it is always the Spirit of God speaking through them and others that we ought to pay the closest attention to.
Trusting the anointing of God in every situation is absolutely profitable. Respect for the Holy Spirit in and through other believers is essential as well. You may not be at a place that you can absolutely trust others 100% or I may not be able to trust people completely either because of the lack of knowledge concerning them, but we must trust the Holy Spirit because He is infallible and is perfectly capable of working out everything that pertains to each and every one of us.
Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision" (Philippians 3:2).
Concision implies a cutting down or off and mutilation. False prophets mutilate faith.
Jesus tells us to be wise as a serpent, but harmless as a dove. Paul offers us a warning here as well, to be careful, look out for, think twice about and be cautious of certain people exhibiting behaviors and works which do not line up with the holiness or righteousness of God found in the Word of God and which do not point you and I to Christ.
The Apostle Paul goes on in verses 3-6 to tell us, that if anyone should glory in or have confidence in the flesh, it would be him as touching and in accordance with the law. Even though all of the things he was professing were the truth as they pertained to him, and an appealing reason to delve into a haughty and proud attitude and standpoint, the Apostle casts down these imaginations which were too heady to carry because they were exalting themselves against the knowledge he had now come into through Christ Jesus. He considered all that he had acquired outside of Christ to be a loss. Wow, the Apostle Paul here convincingly shares truth which is necessary to change, and be successful in doing so today. Yes, the knowledge of Christ is something to desire to gain so that changing into the same image is not just attainable but practical, experiential and realistic.
"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith" (Philippians 3:7-9).
Please read Philippians 3 in its entirety, you will be blessed tremendously. In this letter the Apostle Paul pushes through and overcomes many different and diverse attitudes, postures, stances, positions and perspectives. However, his perspective and summary is to gain Christ and the loss of other things he reports to be equivalent to dung or just sheer waste.
There is a shifting and repositioning in attitudes. This determination he makes in order to complete the change he is desirous of. The change he sought, being not to glory in the accomplishments of his flesh. In which he also concluded that his confidence in his flesh has shifted to the spirit realm where Christ is the pivotal focus. He uncovers that in forgetting the things which are behind, he can now focus and press towards the things which are ahead, he postures himself to look forward and changes and gains a better perspective, Christ Jesus.
Quality brings value to life and who is better equipped to provide value but God. Qualify value and there you have the purpose intended. In this evaluation of the proper and right perspective, the premise and basis is so that change can be of great value. Transformation is our change mechanism. The determination here is, we must be about the Father’s business; therefore we don’t have any time to meddle in other peoples business because we are working out our own salvation. We don’t have time for contention, strife, envy, and division. I am taking this personal as I proceed on my journey of setting my own house in order. The aspects just mentioned above are thieves that can make the Father’s house (you) a den of thieves.
We must increase in the integrity that will guide our way and contend and be honest with ourselves in terms of setting and having the right attitude for change to take place in our lives. I am activity pursuing a yielded state of heart. It is one thing to ask the Lord to change other people to fit my structure, or opinion, so that I can dwell with them from that standpoint, and to also ask Him to change things, situations, circumstances, and conditions and yet I myself go unchanged. I probably could become temporarily comfortable with that mentality in a mediocre way, of it not be me that needs to change. Yeah, let the other person change because they need it anyway, while I continue to live the same old shady life of no change.
I have come to the understanding that I don’t want that kind or quality of life, and I hope and pray that you don’t either. I want God to change me continuously, then I can respond in the way He would have me to, and I won’t react to crisis, but respond. Search me O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and every wicked way You find in me, Lord, forgive me and cleanse me, Lord change me.
I acknowledge and am ever aware of abiding His holy presence in my heart in the person of the Holy Spirit and I welcome His holy presence within me, there is a real Spirit who lives within us whom we must learn to respect and reverence as holy. He is at work in us to produce holiness and manifest it too. The confidence that He inspires towards holiness is always productive in motivating and inspiring holy desires and intents. The Holy Spirit is the teacher of holiness. It is He who guides us into all truth, teaches us what true worship of the Father is, and what it really means to worship God in spirit and in truth, in a loving heart to heart relationship.
The Apostle Paul told us in verse 3 that we are the circumcision, (which involves the purifying and cleansing of the heart) which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
It is not a game of hide go seek, nor is there a cover up scam of what we do. Yielding is being willing to surrender those secret places you just would not ordinarily share with just anyone but you now can share with God. All the fears you experience, which hinder faith, the emotional instabilities that keep you in bondage to your feelings, the opinions you erect which need to be fixed, the images you have of yourself which need a healing touch, or need to be cast down. Every area of our beings that we may be repressing for the fear of being rejected.
The good news is that God accepted us when we were all fouled up, and He promises to complete the things that pertain to us, never to leave nor forsake us. The work we have to do is believe even when it seems like He is not there. Believe when He is silent within us and we can’t hear His voice as well as at other times. Being ever cognizant and willing to change, is being ready to conform into the image of Jesus Christ in every way and every day. Then we can say what the Apostle declared, I die daily, or what John the Baptist said, I must decrease, so that He can increase. We must not refuse Him as He speaks to us standing at the door of our hearts and knocking. His voice shakes all that we are not and whatever in us is shakable in order to bring about change as He requires it of us, this involves and denotes the removing or losing anything which can be shaken because of a shaky foundation.
The Apostle Paul learned it and communicated it brilliantly so that we too would come into the knowledge of these same truths and hold them fast.
(Philippians 3:17) Brethren, be followers together of me and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, accordingly to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. We must count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and gain the proper perspective.
