Redeemed Perspective

As I sit here sipping my peppermint tea this evening, I sort through the thoughts and memories that I lived today---I lived. Heart pumping blood, lungs drinking air, eyes devouring glory, and all senses receiving, giving, seeking, waiting, longing...for something more. Listening for the silent whisper, grasping for more than shadows, hungering for a deeper purpose, longing for a reason to live. And yes...today I lived.

I find sometimes that quiet-little thoughts impact me immensely. The perspective I have upon life, ultimately shapes each day, each word, and each thought. Sadness fills me that often times my perspective does not rise past my own life---my own little world. My sin-clouded eyes look out upon a busyness infested life that has forgotten the power of the Redeemed Perspective.

How important the Redeemed Perspective is for my redeemed heart. I am no longer chained to my sin because Jesus has set me free! Now my life is hidden in Jesus' life. Actually, I no longer live...WAIT! I thought I lived today? I thought all of this that I felt, saw, and experienced was me living....

The grumbling words...the bad attitudes...my anxious heart, filled with worries...

The small hands greedily grasping for life...the stinging-poisonous thoughts...the feeding of grudges, held close...my wandering eyes, turned on my own selfishness...

This is living?

No! This is "ME" dying in my own power. This is "ME" striving in my own strength, seeking my needs, clinging to my dead flesh that has been crucified with Christ. I no longer live---the "ME" has died once and for all!

New life is mine in Jesus---the new life is Jesus living in me! Seeing a world transformed through the cross-centered gaze...watching gray-cloudy days, explode into a million shades of beauty...hearing a melody of praise to the God of my life, even in the squawks of a sea gull...seeing past the wrinkles of a worn face, into the heart of one in love with her Savior...facing death with confidence because life is not found in "living" but in Jesus...persevering in prayer and holding tightly to what is unseen...opening the eyes of the heart to see past the shadows, to hope beyond the possible and reach with faith to do the impossible for Jesus...seeking others joy and living to bless another...setting aside the compelling urge to be like "like Jesus" and instead setting longing eyes upon Jesus...trusting in the kindness and mercy of the Almighty One...believing the promises of the Living God...embracing God as my Daddy and standing firm in His love that never fails...clinging, hoping, believing when everything in me sinks beneath the mocking waves of life, and crying out to Jesus to raise me up and save me because HE IS MERCIFUL AND HE IS MY REDEEMER!

The Redeemed Perspective is life lived with Jesus....a life lived in Jesus...a life lived for Jesus...a life lived redeemed.


Yes, I lived and breathed today, but I am not my own anymore. My life now belongs to my Savior, Jesus. Each new day, I am learning to look through Jesus' eyes and live in His love.