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Perspective
Perspective
Perspective: a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.
When you think about your life what do you see?
Do you feel like your reaching your fullest potential?
Do you feel like your riding into the sunset?
Do you feel like you have more work to do?
Do you feel like you barely scratching the surface?
The question is how do you gage success?
What is success?
Who sets the standard for what we consider a successful life?
Am I successful because of the neighborhood I live in?
Am I successful because of my bank account?
Am I successful because of my career?
Am I successful because of my retirement benefits?
Am I successful because I’m in a relationship?
Success: the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.
If success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose…
My next question is, What is my aim or purpose?
My Perspective will bring clarity to my purpose!
Aim: point or direct (a weapon or camera) at a target.
When i think about my life, What is the target?
What is my purpose?
If my perspective is through the lens called my will....
My target becomes my desire!
My Desire now becomes my aim or purpose…
I now determine what success looks like for my life.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Think about the flesh vs. the spirit
One perspective vs another
One lens vs. another
When are perspective is the through the lens of God’s will…
My target and purpose changes!
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Appeal - Ask Earnestly
“Therefore,” according to chapter 11
Present - To make available or accessible provide or furnish.
William Barclay
Paul says, ‘take your body; take all the tasks that you have to do every day; take the ordinary work of the shop, the office, the factory, the shipyard, the mine; and offer all that as an act of worship to God.
Holy: Dedicated to God’ [BAGD; GW], ‘dedicated to his service’ [TEV]. This word is translated by a phrase: ‘your offering must be only for God’ [NCV]. Being dedicated or consecrated to the service of God [LN (53.46)].
Acceptable to God: fit for His acceptance
Spiritual worship:
True worship is the offering to God of one’s body and all that one does every day with it.
Real worship is the offering of everyday life to him.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Here is a command!
Do not be conformed to this world…
Conformed: to be or become behaviorally or socially similar to; conceived of as being or becoming shaped or molded to a certain pattern.
The World....
But....
Transformed: — to be or become changed in outward appearance or expression as manifesting a change in nature or essence.
Renewal - the act of reestablishing something in a like-new and often improved manner.
Mind…
The Greek word for mind (translated mind in Romans 12:2) includes, but goes far beyond, intellectual or cognitive knowing.
It denotes the seat of reflective consciousness and encompasses a person’s faculties of perception and understanding as well as the patterns of feeling, judging and determining that shape our actions and responses in the world.
Paul says, to worship and serve God, we must undergo a change, not of our outward form, but from within.
When Christ comes into our lives, we are new men and women; our minds are different, for the mind of Christ is in us.
This is why God’s word reveals to us the mind of Christ!
“that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Testing: to be able to determine
Discern
What is the will of God
Good / Acceptable / What is perfect
They are in apposition; the will of God is that which is good, which is pleasing to God, and which is perfect.
My perspective has changed… My lens is the Will of God
My target changes… My purposed is understood
Success now is being a living sacrifice