“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord: “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
“Reason together” is very interesting. It is a meeting of the minds. In our culture, it could be defined as, “let’s get together and discuss the matter. You present your perspective, I’ll present mine, and we’ll meet in the middle somewhere.” But that isn’t what is going on at all. God is Truth. God is Perfect. And a perfect and absolutely truthful God who knows all things is inviting us to see things from a correct perspective. Although He sees our perspective (flawed as it is by our inherent sin nature which blinds us to the truth), He offers His perspective and beckons us to move to where He is to see things rightly.
Have you ever noticed that when you change your perspective – you move perhaps a step to the left or the right – that some things take on an entirely new meaning? Have you ever seen an optical illusion, where if you move a little one way or the other, you see it for what it really is, but when you stand in just the right place, your brain fools you by filling in the gaps as it tries to define what it believes to be the truth? It does this by using false, 2D perspectives in conjunction with interpolated depth perception (the ability of the mind to make rational calculations on what something should look like by comparing it to what appears to be a nearby known object of reference).
Take train tracks going in the distance. Do the rails really get closer to each other the further away the rails are from us? Why do they appear closer to each other then? Our brains take what our eyes see and then creates a modified image using clues from other things around it to find meaning in what we see. The brain has an internal mechanism that looks for meaning everywhere and in everything it sees. Do you ever see bunnies or cars or birds in the way the clouds are formed? Are the clouds really those things? This is because God has given us the ability to intrinsically recognize intelligent design. This is why God can say that no one has any excuse for not recognizing that there is a God by looking at His creation. Since we are able to see that pattern (intelligent design), that ability permeates into other areas of our thought processes.
God offers a very wonderful opportunity to see the truth by pulling back the curtains on sin and righteousness and even time itself. We are created beings, and as such, are bound at this time by the effects of the physical world, including TIME. Rushing around, we are scarcely aware of the bigger picture, because time creates an interesting illusion – that it will always be around, and that there are immediate, temporal consequences for our actions. It also fools us into thinking that when immediate consequences do not occur, that nothing bad will happen. This illusion can guide us into being its slave, rather than helping us to use it for God’s purposes. Timing is everything, right?
So, let’s take a step back and see the magic trick exposed. What happens when we take a look at something through the lens of ETERNITY?
- Justice is served. How easy we get riled up when people do terrible things to us. But God, being a just God, has ensured that justice will be served. The Bible says that God can not be mocked, and a man reaps what he sows. However, the transgression, in God’s eyes, has already been paid for. Jesus bore the sins of the world, every sin for every person ever to exist – in the past, present, and the future – on the cross. The lawbreakers (those who reject Jesus’s payment for our debt to God from sin) go to Hell (the Lake of Fire), and those who accept Jesus go to be with Him in Heaven. Regardless, JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED. You can forgive the offender now. The debt has already been paid. In God’s eyes, since He sees the end from the beginning, He saw it as paid for even before the universe was created; and all of the lawbreakers are already in His jail, the Lake of Fire.
That was just one. Take some time today, and with the Word of God, and the Lens of Eternity, what else do you see that you haven’t seen before?
A short prayer of preparation:
Our Father in Heaven, You are so good to us. In our blindness, You offer sight. You pull back the veil of darkness that clouds our vision and reveal wonderful new things in Your law. You call us to draw close to You and to see things from Your perspective, a true and unvarnished perspective that transcends time and creation. Guide us this day in Your perfect light, and remove the darkness that hides the true nature of reality. You and You alone can see what is, what was, and what will be, and we desperately need Your help to navigate this life as we are crippled by our sin nature. Blessed is Your name, that You seek us, redeem us, and keep us. Your glory is beautiful to behold; may we bask in Your light, and be enlightened. This we ask in the name of Your Most Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Want more? Why not try A. B. Simpson or A. W. Tozer?
CHRIST ALLIANCE CHURCH 
Awesome Kris….