The Power of Perspective

Last Sunday I began my sermon by showing the congregation some optical illusion images. These images were to show us all how many people can view the same thing while coming away with different understandings of what they saw. This is what perspective is, the way in which you and I see particular situations, events and occurrences. The scripture i focused on was Ezra chapter 3 that details the returned Jewish exiles beginning to rebuild the foundation of their temple. We see that from one rebuilding project there were three different perspectives the people took when the project was done. let's recap what those three perspectives was and how Israel might help us to see the power of perspective in our own lives....

#1.) The perspective of heaviness

The first perspective mentioned in Ezra 3 was the perspective that the older Men, particularly the priest and Levites had. These men wept bitterly and were consumed with grief and sorrow because they had seen the former temple in all of its glory. The Jews had been in captivity in Babylon for decades, they were cast from their land and Solomons temple was destroyed, you would think these older men should've been the happiest people in the room because they were restored to their land and their worship of God, but because they held on to the past, it saddened them deeply. Their perspective was clouded in regret and not gratitude......many of us can relate with them

#2.) The Perspective of happiness

unlike the elders who had seen the former temple which produced sorrow in them that the former house was no more, the sound of joy was heard from the younger crowd that could only see the coming glory in the future! you see, because the younger group had no knowledge of the former all they could do was praise God for the NOW! These people had been born in bondage; all they knew was servitude, all they were used to is hearing stories about worshipping God in their own land of Israel, but they had never experienced it for themselves, so when they finally got back to the land, it was a time of great rejoicing for them, they were grateful.....let us learn from this group! things may not be as they were or as good as they could be, but let's praise God as we bask in joy and happiness that we were once slaves but now we're FREE

#3.) The perspective of Haziness

The last perspective taken was that of haziness or confusion and cloudiness! as we mentioned above, there was a group in tears and weeping loudly, but there was also a group rejoicing and praising loudly, the scriptures say their combined noise was heard from afar and that people couldn't distinguish the sounds, they couldn't make out what they were hearing at all. in my view, these people couldn't distinguish the sounds because they weren't close enough to the action! Had they been closeup, they wouldn't have only heard the sounds, but they would've seen the expressions, the tears and laughs from the people. In our lives let's make a decision to be close enough to the action in people's lives to see them in the correct light. Many people give criticism from a distance, but how can they really know what's going on if they are far away? Perspective is all about proximity many times.

I pray you were encouraged by this message, and I can't wait to continue our series " Rebuild the Ruins" be blessed!!

Pastor J