Our understanding of the things of God, such as the cross, redemption, man, God's plan for man, etc., may vary depending on how you look at the matter. By that, I mean from what vantage point you are looking from. Either vantage point can be and probably is, correct with Bible verses to confirm. Yet, that view may become wrong for you, as you grow in the Lord. There are three viewpoints that are common among us: the fallen man view, redeemed man view and then the God view. With the fallen man view, everything is about man; his lostness, wretchedness, dispair, hopelessness and his past. This view presents a constant focus on the darkness of fallen man. With adherents of this view, their world is not filled with light, but with darkness and underlying fear. They only hope they can make it to the end. Then there is vantage point number two, the redeemed man view. He looks at matters, and sees redemption as all about him. All that he does, he does for reward and the size of the reward ever looms bigger in his eyes. Everything is about man for this fellow as well as the fellow with fallen man view. And, they both have lots of supporting Bible verses to throw about. Yet, both views are horizontal man views. Both are views through the eyes of flesh and not from heavenly places. Incidentally, these viewpoints often set these two camps at odds with each other. One hates that "prosperity, bless-me preaching" and the other hates that "hell-fire and brimestone condemnation" preaching. And, they often don't mix well. And, they are both sure they have the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
When we only view, and refuse to go beyond, the horizontal man view, our values of matters may be greatly out of whack. We can't see how this, or that, fits in the scope of our man view, so we devalue. We optionalize. And, in the end, we lose. With the man view, the value of things is based on the what seems best for man, not God. So, we easily cast aside anything that might make man uncomfortable. And, sooner or later, that becomes costly.
The difference between the man vision and the God vision, which is the third viewpoint, is like looking at a parade through a knothole (man vision) versus watching the same parade over the top of the fence (God vision). Same parade, very different perspective but through that knothole, you actually see little. The man vision is like standing on an open plain looking at a line of telephone poles stretching across the plain. The one you are standing next to is huge, the one at the end of the line is tiny. That is a distorted perspective. Yet, what you see seems to be nothing but the truth but it is distorted. Man view makes the things of man huge, and is only concerned with those things that fill his eyes. He will hug that pole close and build his world around it. But, when the eyes of our understanding are opened, meaning we have shifted from man view to God view, the view of the same matter is dramatically different. We see the beginning and the end. We see that all those poles were equal in size. And, we see the purpose of the whole matter. And, our values change.
I have found that there is a lot of restance to changing viewpoints upward. Our adversay, if he cannot keep us lost, will keep us earth-bound by vision perspective. He blinds by ignorance, and I don't mean lack of smarts. We are alienated, Paul says, from the life of God by ignorance. This ignorance is about not seeing things from God's view. This ignorance is about letting the man view tell you all there is to know about the things of God. You know, you can take a quarter, put it over one eye, close the other, and block out the immense sun, but it is a distortion. Yet, it is how so many view the things of God. Our eyes are so filled with quarters (the things of man) that the Son is blocked from view. For example, people who hate themselves love to focus on their darkness. They don't want to hear about righteousness. They want to hug that pole of remembered, wretched, darkness. They have what the Bible refers to as an evil conscience that steals a bold approach to God. And, they don't care that that pole is followed by a thousand other poles and the purpose of all is to bring power. They just know they are a wretched person, lucky to be saved. Sin, sin, sin, is their obsession, their pole and they hang on to it. Or, how about the man who has just discovered the prosperity message? Every verse for him is about money. Money, money, money, blessing, blessing is his message. Every teaching revolves around getting more blessings. That quarter over his eye is all he sees. I remember a prosperity preacher declaring "we don't need more God, we just need more money". He had an eye full of quarters. Is the darkness real and do we need to resist it? Yes! Is it the will of God to prosper us? Yes! But, behind that pole, behind that quarter, there is divine purpose and God wants us to know it and walk in it. We look for His light, not ours. And, in His light we shall find light.
