God's Point Of View
Download MP3Welcome to a place of peace, hope, and divine encouragement. This is Joy in Every Step with your host, beloved preacher, retired teacher, and faithful faithful servant of the Lord, Sarita Bernadette. Each week, Sarita shares heartfelt messages rooted in the word of God, filled with wisdom, joy, and the gentle reminder that God cares deeply for you. Whether you're walking through the valleys or dancing on the mountaintops, Sarita's voice will guide you back to his promises step by step. So open your heart, settle your spirit, take and the next step in faith with joy in every step.
Sarita Bernadette:Hi. I'm Sarita Bernadette and welcome back to another episode of Joy in Every Step. I'm glad you're here. In the last episode, we looked at surrendering to healing and doing it God's way. Surrendering to God's way of doing things requires faith.
Sarita Bernadette:Yes, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Your faith is what you have while you wait for God to do what only He can do. Faith requires a change in perspective. Has anyone else noticed the trend on social media related to point of view? Point of view.
Sarita Bernadette:Simply put, point of view or POV is the position from which something is seen or observed. Across social media, POV or point of view is this trend where creators use text on the screen to indicate that you, the viewer, will be experiencing the content from a specific perspective. You're probably seeing it everywhere, I know I am. The technique popular on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, they, it puts the viewer in the shoes of a character in a relatable or imaginative situation making the content more personal or engaging. So many social media influencers have mastered this technique and it caused me to think about how much we have come to value and rely on our own point of view or our own perspective on things.
Sarita Bernadette:Everyone has an opinion about everything these days, right? Well, I wondered what God thinks about all of that and of course there are some answers in his word. Many of us know this scripture by heart. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths.
Sarita Bernadette:That's Proverbs three, five and six. The message version of that same scripture reads like this, Trust God from the bottom of your heart. Don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go. He's the one who will keep you on track.
Sarita Bernadette:I love that. The amplified classic says, Do not rely on your own insight or understanding. Your own insight or understanding. It's clear that God wants our insights and our understanding, our perspective if you will, our point of view to agree with His, to align with His. God is the Creator.
Sarita Bernadette:He is sovereign. It's all about His plan and His purpose. He is the narrator of this story. However, we do have a say we have free will and therefore we have some decisions to make about how all of this goes. Scripture calls on believers to adopt God's point of view by consistently renewing our minds and seeking his wisdom.
Sarita Bernadette:Many times in order to make that happen we have to activate our faith. Have you ever heard the expression seeing through the eyes of faith? Seeing through the eyes of faith is a perspective that allows believers to see the truth, to see reality and divine purpose beyond what our physical senses can detect. This happens when we trust God's promises We trust in his power. We trust in his word even through situations even though situations seem tough.
Sarita Bernadette:We trust him. Second Corinthians four sixteen through 18, this is The Message version reads like this, So we're not giving up. How could we? Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside where God is making a new life, out a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us.
Sarita Bernadette:There's far more here than meets the eye, it says. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow, but the things we can't see now will last forever. This verse directly calls on us as believers to shift our focus from the physical and the temporary to the spiritual and eternal realities that faith reveals. Yes, faith. Faith.
Sarita Bernadette:So what is God's point of view? Are we familiar with it? Let's talk a little bit about our point of view versus God's point of view and ask yourself the question, are they aligned? Are they in alignment? Or is your point of view in alignment with God's point of view?
Sarita Bernadette:The whole concept is rooted in passages like Ephesians one and eighteen which speaks of the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. Paul prays about this when writing to the church at Ephesus. He says he is asking God to give them wisdom and revelation as they come to know Him. Here it is, Ephesians one eighteen through 19, So that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power for us who believe according to the working of His great power. The eyes of our hearts refers to our inner being which includes our mind, our will, and our emotions.
Sarita Bernadette:The writer here wants us to be confident of our salvation and excited about the wonderful future that awaits us and he's not just talking about heaven he's talking about our future right here on earth on this side of heaven. There's a story in the sixth chapter of second Kings and it involves the Old Testament prophet Elisha. In a nutshell, it's about a time when he sees a divine army protecting him from a physical one. Now just a little background on this accounting which take takes place during the mid to late nineteenth century BC. The prophet Elisha has angered the king of Aram.
Sarita Bernadette:One translation uses the word perturbed. The king is perturbed with Elisha because he is able to hear from God about the king's next place of attack and Elisha then goes and warns the people to avoid that place. Therefore thereby avoiding an attack from the king. So, the king of Aram finds out where Elisha is and he sends horses and chariots and a whole army there to surround the city at night. Verse 15 reads, When an attendant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city.
Sarita Bernadette:His servant said, Alas, master, what shall we do? And he replied, Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them. Verse 17 reads, Then Elisha prayed, O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see. So the lord opened the eyes of the servant and he saw. The mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
Sarita Bernadette:Elisha saw those horses and chariots through the eyes of faith or one might say he saw the situation from God's point of view and he prayed that his servant would also see what he saw he said open his eyes Open his eyes, Lord. What if we prayed that kind of prayer? What if we use some of the scriptures in the Word of God that remind us of that very thing? What if we said open our eyes Lord, we want to see what you see. Scriptures emphasizing God's point of view reveal his thoughts are higher than ours, that he sees the big picture and that his plans work through human actions to bring about his will.
Sarita Bernadette:There's another term that is often used interchangeably with point of view and that is viewpoint. Viewpoint can indeed be one's belief or attitude about something but it can also refer to the location from which something is seen. We're still talking about perspective but just in a different way. Make this slight shift with me here. Let's look at a few scriptures to help us understand this just a bit better.
Sarita Bernadette:Isaiah 55 verses eight through nine For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. I believe these verses highlight the infinite difference between God's ways and our ways. They tell us that God's wisdom and his perspective are beyond human comprehension. He's letting us know that he can see afar off when we can only see so far.
Sarita Bernadette:Right? But we can be confident in this scripture also Romans eight twenty eight. Romans eight twenty eight assures us that everything works together for good for those who love God. That verse says everything, no exceptions. In order to proclaim that everything is working together, God must have a better view than we do.
Sarita Bernadette:It must mean that God sees the big picture and if we want to see more of what he sees, we'll have to lean into him and his word. So long ago and far away friends, when we were teaching young children about how to read maps, remember those maps, paper maps, wow. We would begin with something called the bird's eye view. A bird's eye view is the view from above or it's an elevated view, elevated. It's the view from an elevated position or a view from a perspective as if one were a bird flying overhead.
Sarita Bernadette:Yes, an aerial view. Now imagine if you can, how much higher God's view must be. Yes, He's able to see it all. God's view, God's angle is such that he can see everything clearly. And of course, I'm speaking in a spiritual sense here, but just think about that.
Sarita Bernadette:When considering God's viewpoint, it could be described as as as panoramic as well. You've heard that word before. A panoramic view is a broad sweeping and unbroken perspective such that one can see in all directions without obstruction. A clear view friends, a vast view. First Corinthians two and nine reads, But as it is written, eye has not seen nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him.
Sarita Bernadette:This emphasizes that what God has in store for believers is beyond what humans can currently see or even imagine. You can't talk about God's point of view or his viewpoint here without mentioning Joshua and Caleb. Oh Joshua and Caleb, you might be familiar with this story from the Old Testament. It takes place during the Israelites' journey to the promised land after the exodus from Egypt. It's in numbers fourteen six through nine here that I'm gonna be reading from, and it says, Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, son of Jephunah, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the Israelites, the land that we went through as spies is an exceedingly good land.
Sarita Bernadette:If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us. A land that flows with milk and honey. Verse nine, only do not rebel against the Lord and do not fear the people of the land for they are no more than bread for us. Their protection is removed from them and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.
Sarita Bernadette:So these verses tell us about Joshua and Caleb who were two Israelite men who along with 10 others were chosen by Moses to go and spy on the land of Canaan before the Israelites actually entered it. So, basically we're told basically they're told rather you go in and look around for us then you come back and you give us a report. While the other spies returned with a negative report talking about the giants living there and the large fortified cities, Joshua and Caleb delivered a positive one, stressing God's power to give them the victory and to conquer that land. Because of their faith, Joshua and Caleb were the only ones from their generation allowed to enter the promised land. Joshua eventually led the next generation in.
Sarita Bernadette:Here's the promise in Numbers 14 verse 24, But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. Later in that same book of Numbers we read that due to their disobedience and their stubbornness the children of Israel were sentenced to wander in the wilderness for forty years. So it's mentioned in Scripture that Caleb was indeed 85 years old when they entered the Promised Land. So, he and Joshua had to wait. They had to wait like the rest of the people.
Sarita Bernadette:But I imagine, in my holy imagination, that there was a difference in their waiting versus the rest of the Israelites. Based on their attitude, after seeing what was in the land and tasting the fruit based on the encouraging report that they brought back, I believe they chose to wait with hope. I mean, they could have gone it could have gone another way, I mean they could have become discouraged with the long wait, they could have become bitter having experienced Canaan for that short period of time but because they saw the land through the eyes of faith from God's point of view, I believe they remembered what it was like to be in that land that God had promised them. I believe they waited with great anticipation. Believers, let's seek to see and understand things from God's point of view.
Sarita Bernadette:He sees far beyond what we see and his perspective is one filled with hope and joy. Let's look for the joy friends. Let's look for the joy. You've been listening to Joy in Every Step. I'm Sarita Bernadette and I am grateful you chose to spend some time here with me.
Sarita Bernadette:You can find Joy in Every Step wherever you listen to your podcasts and give us a follow there. Do check out the website at joyineverystep.org.
Creators and Guests
