A Family that Has Gratitude Not Attitude Part 2
A Family that Has Gratitude Not Attitude • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Living with Perspective
Living with Perspective
as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
When you learn to live, with your focus on that which is of eternal value, you live with a greater since of gratitude.
While in the hospital waiting room, I was speaking with one of my relatives. He told me of a story of a preacher who had come down with a debilitating disease. It should have killed him or at least left him incapacitated.
The old preacher said to the young man, “I rejoice that God healed me.” The young man said, “You are still hunched over and it does not look like healing to me.” The old preacher said, “But I should be dead, unable to walk or speak and preach the Gospel of the one who saved my soul. Instead, I am still alive, walking, and still preaching. Son, God healed me.”
Building your family with divine perspective is critical to the development of your children’s worldview, your worldview of marriage, your worldview of church, your place and purpose, even through the changes and trials of this life.
If you look just at the things in this life alone to establish your perspective you will find it short on purpose at times. But if you will look at life eternal for your perspective, you will never fall short of divine sovereign purpose and hope.
I read and hear of wounded soldiers all of the time who have lost limbs and sight but still find a divine reason to live as spouses, siblings, athletes, preachers and overall inspirations to those around us who struggle to see any sense in things that happen in this life.
Have you seen the brother who travels the world preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ but was born with no arms or legs. Instead of being angry with God and focusing on the fact that he was born with no arms or legs he focuses on the fact that he lives, has a life and honors God with every ounce of it.
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Let this mind be also in your family. When your family faces trials and hardships, how do you respond? Do you reflect a hope and trust in the faithfulness and goodness of God, or do you project reactions of fear, anxiety, frustration, despair, resentment, hopelessness and anger?
You have heard it said that there are those who see the glass half full and those who see the glass half empty. I tell you, both perspectives are humanistic. I tell you that the one whose hope and life is founded in the Kingdom of God, their perspective is that God owns the glass and the water. They are just thankful to God to have a glass of water. If God wants to empty it or fill it again, so be it. It is His to fill and empty.
We have generations today that know how to look at life but one way, an empty glass. They are a victim of cultural emptiness. This culture once again, like in the sixties, fed generations an empty lie of moral subjective relativism that has left them with confused and empty souls.
Your families must be different and rise above this empty living and show your entire family the fulness of God’s life in your homes even in the face of this life’s hardships. Learn and teach how Kingdom perspective people see God at work even on the darkest days. How did the early Christians face the mouths of lions and the swords of their enemies with faith and hope instead of fear and hate? Eternal perspective in Christ Jesus their risen Savior.
I am not talking about religious super spirituality and cultural cliches. I am talking about knowing, seeing, and speaking the truth and light of Christ in every life circumstance.
Angie and I could look back and live in grief of two children we lost. But instead, every moment of every day we live in extreme gratefulness for the five amazing children God has chosen to so richly bless us with.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Hear the words of the Apostle Paul to the Early Church facing extreme persecution and wondering in their hearts and minds if it was worth the cause of Christ. They were questioning the value of their sacrifices and sufferings.
The Apostle was imparting and calling them back to living with eternal divine perspective in the face of great persecution and sorrow. He is calling them back to seeing that the vessel is neither empty nor full, it is the Lords. And my brothers and sisters, so are you. Are you grateful for His great love? Are you so grateful that it changes your perspective of the life and the season you are now in?
Teach your family to see the grateful in Christ Jesus and choose not to let despair, disappointments, and discouragements in life drive them down a hopeless road without the Lord. If you have camped out there, it’s time to give up your reservation and gain God’s outlook.