January 04, 2013
Perspective
Rivers in Colorado have a problem with tamarisk, an invasive species of
bush that is squeezing out native vegetation. The State is working at
eradicating the tamarisk, not only because it is invasive, but because it also sucks
up a tremendous amount of water. Recently a newspaper reported on visitors taking
a float trip down the Colorado River and seeing the dead and dying brown
shrubs. They wondered if it was drought related and they were sad for our loss
of vegetation. The reporter asked, “Is
the death of the tamarisk sad or long overdue?” The world might look at
faith in Jesus in a similar way, but from the perspective of the believer,
death of the sinful nature is not sad. “In
the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
(Ro 6:11 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I get a kick out of watching people deny what they don’t know. It is a fallacy belonging to the truly non-thinking. Perspective is simply the database of information in a person’s mind and the varieties of associations made within it. The ponderings of the rafting visitors shows how easy it is to look foolish when our perspectives are out of context with reality.
-----I believe the first concern of a thinking person in any unfamiliar situation is, “How much does my lacking knowledge effect me here?” Everyone knows their own knowledge is limited. But not everyone uses that tidy fact in their thinking. It would be very easy for someone to see the dying tamarisks and presume drought caused it since we have been in a drought. Then it is also easy to see how people could look at all the hot and harsh weather we’ve had and presume our industriousness has caused it, having had personal perspectives shaped by three decades of environmental crisis mongering. Similarly, in the light of all the evolution and materialistic gleichscheltung (a condition in which every institution and organization of a society bandies the same idea,) Jesus gets categorized with Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. Yet in all these and every other situation of fallacious belief, the believer will not deny the limitation of his knowledge. He just will not allow that fact to effect his conclusion.
-----But the Bible demands we use the fact. How could we expect anything less, seeing that the Bible is a statement of the truth? It first informs us that we are all false, then it tells us to humble ourselves. Humility is neither a physical nor an intellectual flagellation. And always putting yourself after others and counting yourself as less is a more metaphorical connotation of it than an actual denotation. Humility is fitting yourself to reality in every way. It is important to realize that God defines reality. As your blog aptly demonstrates, no man defines reality or even approaches knowing it completely, for he deals mostly in mere perspective. So the first fit obviously required in any situation is to temper perspective by the fact of limited knowledge.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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