“But this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind…”

PERSPECTIVE: The above pericope is from Paul’s pastoral letter to the church in Philippi (the word pericope, by the way, means an extract from a text. Think periscope, and you’re at the same word root).

Paul’s testimony comes from the same faith place as the David Livingston quote I used a few days back, ”I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward,” and it resonates with the powerful testimony Wake Forest Presbyterian Church is offering as this faith community intentionally lives into the transformational future God has prepared.

Our ability to see this, though, and our consequent ability to purposefully embrace this idea of “living forward,” is often a matter of perspective. Not just having our eyes open, but having our eyes fixed on Jesus.

OPEN MY EYES! Put another way: What we see when we look depends a lot on the direction we are facing, it depends on our willingness to shift our perspective, it depends on if we are prepared to “open the eyes of our hearts.”

Psalm 119, which is a wonderful read, and casts such a lot of light on the beauty of God’s Word, asks, “Open my eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (v 18).

Wondrous things out of your law! Wondrous things that we don’t see, or can’t see, or won’t see when we resolutely fix our eyes on religion and make doctrine our God, instead of using religious practice as a framework designed to help us to know God.

So I have to repeat these four thoughts from my recent post about sin:

• Sin is the antithesis of life.
• Sin is anything that separates us from God.
• Legalistic religion can drive a wedge of separation between people and God, between people and “life.”
• When we accept Jesus and his invitation to “life” we receive grace and are welcomed into God with open arms.

SCOUT: So, what’s with the dog pics? Well, I captured both images within a space of three seconds. Scoutie didn’t move a single muscle. She just stayed there, flopped at her favorite vantage point at the top of the stairs, holding onto her “baby.”

The only thing that shifted was my perspective.

Here’s what I’m thinking. We engage the world as believers, but we’re preconditioned as much by our social and cultural framework (and our identity as affluent, vested in the status-quo Americans) as we are by our ongoing journey as Followers of the Living Way of Jesus.

In consequence we view everything through that particular lens. And quite often we are incapable of seeing, of moving forward, or of doing anything other than doggedly protecting a status quo that may have more to do with our predilections (penchant, partiality, preference, predisposition) as North Americans than our journey as disciples of Jesus.

MATURE FAITH: “Let those of us who are mature,” Paul said, “be of the same mind.”

• 

  forgetting what lies behind,

• straining forward to what lies ahead,
• pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ

– DEREK