Daily Devotions based the Sermon on Numbers 21:4-9 from March 14, 2021
THIS WEEK: Lead Me to the Cross…Find the Snake…Find the Cross!
I promised you the third blessing of looking up when you get fed up. Here it is:
3. You live seeing God’s Perspective
This past Wednesday, I was listening to the latest episode of John Maxwell’s Leadership podcast on which he had Jamie Kern Lima. She is the author of a new book, Believe It, and the founder of IT Cosmetics. She related that at one point as she was building the business and desperate for an investor, she thought she had a deal with an equity group, but was told “No.” When she asked why, the lead of the investment group said, “I don’t think people will buy make up from a person who looks like you.”
Ouch. This hurt, obviously, but it also fed her resolve to have a cosmetic line that appealed to the everyday woman, not just super models. Six years after that rejection, she sold the company to L’Oreal for $1.2 billion. The lead of the investment group sent her an email and congratulated her on the deal and said, “I was wrong.”
If Jamie had that group of investors give her money, she would have sold much more stake in the company and lost out on millions of dollars at the sale of the company to L’Oreal.
As she reflected back on the situation she quipped, “Rejection is God’s Protection.”
As hard as that rejection was, she, as a Christian, could look back and see God had a plan better than the one for which she was rejected.
In the moment, it is tough to see God’s perspective. When things aren’t working out as we plan, it is hard for us to trust that God has our good in mind. These situations challenge our innate desire to control, work our plan, and have our outcome.
God invites us to look up. When we look up we see his perspective.
For Israel, the issue at hand was poisonous snakes (Numbers 21:4-9). But for God it was poison in their hearts. Their hearts were drifting from the LORD and his leadership. In his mercy, he gave them a solution for the snakes, but better yet, he gave their hearts opportunity to turn back to him and trust him with their lives.
God’s perspective always carries our long-term and eternal destination in mind. The very familiar verse of Scripture, gives that focus:
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Here’s some more verses that give God’s perspective:
God’s perspective on our work/career:
1 Corinthians 10:31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
God’s perspective on tough relationships:
Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
God’s perspective on material wealth and seeking after it:
Matthew 16:26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
God’s perspective on our value and worth:
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Just remember, we won’t see God’s perspective if we always look down at the situation. So look up and live life seeing it from God’s perspective.
Apply: Consider a challenging situation in which you find yourself. What changes when you try to see it from God’s perspective? What is he inviting you to do? Learn? Understand?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for knowing and guiding my life. Show me your perspective more and more. Remind me always when I get fed up, to always look up to you…and live. AMEN.