Having Eternal Perspective

• should lifelong goal of a Christian
• prevents some of the “why” questions
• more effective for the cause of Christ, less time focusing on the temporal.

I keep working through the list of all the different ways we can apply this. So I’ve pulled out three today that have been on my mind as of late. There’s definitely more though

Recognize sometimes earthly wealth is a hindrance, not a help

Walking around the neighborhood behind point hope. Houses starting in the “low 800ks” .

The “what do you do fer a living. Where you you work?” vine

We can see a lot of opulent wealth right here where we live, as opposed to some places where everyone’s middle class or lower class.

• What did Jesus see in his mind when he saw the rich young ruler approaching?

Here was a man who had it all. He was rich in the things of God and of Man. He was the kind of guy any church would have wanted to have. No baggage and good tithe. You don’t have to worry about him coming in wearing the wrong kind of clothes, or saying uncouth things, or spreading heresy. He knew the truth.

However, Jesus looked at the same man all of us would have looked at as a shining example of the Christian life, and he saw something different. Keep in mind, he loved him, just as he loves us, but he saw something different in him than we would probably see.

Jesus saw this man’s wealth as a hindrance, rather than a help. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know many people who look at rich people and say “hmmm, that might not be good for them to have that big house and that nice car and that fancy boat.” No! We’re more like “what do I have to do some of that? Don’t worry. I’ll make sure the Lord gets his 10% and I’ll use it for good. But not having to worry about bills? Umm yeah, sign me up.”

It’s like how everybody says “down with the billionaires” until they become a billionaire.

If someone walks in here and gives you a million dollars, 99% of people are not going to turn it down.

But Jesus is looking at this situation different than most of us do. He sees wealth as a hindrance in the life of his child. This man could have been the 13th disciple for all we know, and he turned it down for the stuff that moth and rust could corrupt.

That stuff kept this man from walking with God. Literally.

So… if we’re trying to live a life with eternal perspective, maybe we need to think about this in our own lives. Next time you look at the bills and you’re like, “how am I going to do this Lord?”, that’s a good thing. That’s you relying on God instead of your own wisdom and wealth. I feel like sometimes we pray to God for things that would pull us away from Him. Heed to the warning of the rich young ruler. Have eternal perspective.

Recognize that we love others because of who Jesus is, not who they are.

The met at work who lied about what I said and almost got me fired from HR.

There are people out there who genuinely see no problem pulling you down and hurting you. They very much live a “me first” life. How are we to interact with them?

Realize that the Christian life is the only life that allows you to truly be a new person, because total reliance on the person of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is the only thing that can break you from who you used to be.

So until people come to that knowledge, you can’t expect them to behave any different.

• What passed through Jesus’s head each time he broke bread with Judas over the three years of ministry. Or when he watched Judas minister to the poor, or witness. Before the betrayal.

That was perhaps 3 years where Judas probably…

• ministered to widows
• broke bread and told jokes with other disciples
• distributed food to the crowds
• sat under Jesus’s teaching, both within the disciple group and with the masses.

SIDE NOTE: Judas heard all of Christ sermons, so don’t think just cause you’re hearing good preaching that somehow means you’re saved

You have to remember, Judas didn’t just show up on the scene two weeks before the crucifixion talking to the Pharisees about 30 pieces of silver. The Bible says in John 12:6 that Judas was the treasurer of the group. You don’t let the guy who you don’t trust hold all the money. There was probably a time where Judas was well-liked in the group. Perhaps even years where he was well-liked.

When Judas started following Jesus, I believe the thought of betraying him wasn’t even in his mind. Jesus was a kook to many. He didn’t get popular until he started performing miracles. What did Judas initially see in Jesus when Jesus approached him about following Him? We’ll probably never know.

Jesus had ASKED this man to be one of his 12 most trusted and closest confidants. Jesus, knowing all things, still brought Judas in. Jesus knew that this man was going to be the catalyst that God would use to send him to the most terrible pain that He would experience now on this earth. AND JESUS STILL TOOK HIM IN.

By no means am I saying that we need to take people who wish us harm and give them keys to our house and access to our bank accounts, but perhaps we need to do some self-reflection on what real ministry looks like. Jesus spent years ministering to a man who he knew was going to take part in the plot to kill him. He spent years witnessing to a man who he knew was going to ultimately be a coward who hung himself. There was no redemption arc for Judas. He crashed and burned. He betrayed the Son of God totally and completely.

Why did Jesus still minister to him then? And why can we look at people in our lives and determine that they’re not worth our time?

• Some people are estranged from their parents or their children. They don’t want to talk to them or see them.
• Some of us have had toxic bosses or coworkers who we were convinced were trying to get us fired.
• Some of us have friendships with others that have been ripped apart
• Each day, some of us probably pass by addicts. People who don’t want help and are content to ride their highs until they rot.
• We see people who take advantage of the government safety nets and we write them off as scumbags.

My point is there’s plenty of people who we think it’s a waste of time to interact with. These are people who’ve caused us harm, directly or indirectly took advantage of us, or just go against the ideals that we expect people to uphold.

Judas did all of this to Jesus. Jesus had heavenly perspective and still ministered to him. Why? Because Jesus’s love for Judas wasn’t tied to any aspect of who Judas was, but rather to who Jesus was.

Today, if we are to have heavenly eternally perspective, how we minister to those around us should not be tied to the relationship we personally have (or don’t have) with them. It shouldn’t be tied to the damage they’ve done to us or have the potential to do. Rather it should be tied to who Jesus is and the relationship we have with Him as children of His.

Find that person. Most people have at least one. What is your level of interaction with them? Do you pray for them? Do you earnestly seek God to open their eyes, to change their path, to draw them to Him?

God got the glory from Jesus being a light to Judas, even though Judas ultimately took the wrong path. The fact that we’re sitting here talking about the amazing example Jesus set today is proof of this truth. Are we doing the same with the people that God has placed in our sphere of influence?

Recognize there is a spiritual battle being waged.

• What about the demon possessed man living among the tombs?

Jesus saw a man afflicted with demons. A man who society deemed beyond hope. A man everyone else had cast aside.

Interesting how demon possession just kind of ended after Bible times right?

In Jesus’s time, estimates for the total number of Jews in the Roman Empire range from 4.2 million to as high as 7 million.

Today in America for the population of over 340 million people, not a single one of us is demon possessed. Not a single one of us is under demonic influence. What do we have instead?

• We just have depressions.
• We have anxiety.
• We have people being gunned down in the street and church and school by psychopaths that have chemical imbalances in their brain.
• Children being locked up in rooms for years on years by negligent parents.
• Men that think they’re women. Women that think they’re men. They have surgeries to cut off parts of their bodies and add parts.
• People parade around in drag and naked in front children and no one cares.
• We have rape and abuse.

But no demons.

Jesus saw the demons for what they were. He was looking at life through a very different lens than we do today.

There are two types of demonic presence very active in our world today. Full-on inward possession (as in the case of the man among the tombs), and external influence demons put on people.

Please understand that a child of Christ will never be demon-possessed (for a demon can’t inhabit the place that the Holy Spirit already indwells), but we can wrestle with the external influences.

With the power of Christ as our help, there is a possibility that you and I may feel the effects of spiritual war within our lives. This happens even if you are the best Christian you can be. Look at Paul…

God allowed a demon to afflict Paul in order to keep Paul reliant on God’s grace and power. Paul had been given so much spiritual truth and seen so much others didn’t see that he could’ve gotten prideful about it. But God kept him reliant on Him.

In the end, though, this was all for God’s glory and Paul’s protection. As we see, Jesus had control over the demons, and he kept them right where they needed to be. There was no overstepping.

Are you aware of the spiritual war in your life today? Do you feel it’s affects? Do you see it? There are wicked people in the world, but the wickedness is often caused by those influences.

I went downtown a few weekends ago to a jazz lounge. It was Frank Sinatra night. It was a great show full of all the old classics. The issue was that we had gotten the late showing. When the show ended, we ended up walking out onto King Street, bar-side, at almost midnight. It was Pottersville from It’s a Wonderful Life . All the college kids were out on the town. It was raining. Loud, profane music was bumping, coming from multiple bars right there on the strip. There were girls, already drunk, stumbling down the sidewalk in the rain wearing short little dresses. There was one woman who was barefoot, sitting on the curb in a puddle, just smiling at nothing in the light of the all the streetlamps and bars. Her eyes were spinning in her head. She was rocking like she was about to fall over. She was getting close to blackout drunk if she wasn’t already there.

As we passed by, heading towards the parking garage, I heard someone ask if she was okay. A man standing nearby her with some of his buddies called out, “She’s fine. That’s my wife. 4 years going on forever.” Then everyone busted out laughing. It made me sick to my stomach. Just the depravity and hedonism. The lack of care and self-respect. A “husband” content to let his wife sit in filth on the curb, drunk out of her mind and wearing basically nothing. It was wicked. There was demonic influence in the air that night. There was something unseen feeding on all of that energy, just as assuredly as the sky was blue the next morning.

Interesting side-note… the word alcohol comes from an Arabic word “Al-Kuhl”, which is translated “body-eating spirit”. And yes… alcohol is called spirits as well sometimes. Interesting huh? What happens when someone gets blackout drunk? They don’t remember anything, yet their body continues to function and move. If their brain isn’t conscious enough to create memories, then what is controlling them in that period of time? And what kind of actions do they normally take place in when they’re blackout drunk?

When you realize that a spiritual battle is being fought, and you see this world through that eternal lens, things start to make more sense don’t they? You can start to see demons for what they are.

Application

The more you read the Bible, the more you can see instances of how Jesus viewed the world differently than the way we often do. We’ve talked about a few here

• Seeing wealth as a hindrance rather than a help
• Loving others for who Jesus is rather than who they are
• Seeing the spiritual battle

How do we become more and more in tune with this eternal perspective? It’s a life-long process. But you can continue to grow in this regards with a few key steps.

When you see people do you see their future with and without Christ

Pastors often have years and years of watching people take either the wrong path and the right path. I know a 12-year-old kid who’s dad died by suicide and whos mom is struggling with addiction. He’s just started at a new school and he’s so excited to have friends for the first time. I see the writing on the wall. The kid is seeking validation. He’s entering high school with no family at home to ground him. What happens if someone doesn’t come alongside him and point him to Christ? It is so essential that we see people for who they are and who they will be with and without Christ. Then, we can pray for them and love them and reach out to them and share the Gospel with them, so that they may be saved.

Prayerful Bible Study

To often, we sit down in front of our Bibles and read them like robots. Well, I have to get through X number of verses, pages, or chapartmenters today.

Or we listen to a sermon in church or on YouTube. And we see in the Bible what God has showed somebody else.

These things are not bad in and of themselves, but God wants more from you and for you . This is where prayerful Bible study comes in. Try this.

Grab a physical Bible, a pen, and a piece of paper. No distractions from tablets, phones, and computers.

Next time, before you read your Bible, take 60 seconds and ask God to reveal His Word to you. Tell Him what’s weighing on your heart in that time. Maybe its people. Maybe its work. Maybe its health issues. And ask Him to reveal his Will in your time with him. Praise Him for the good He is working in your life.

Then sit with God’s Word. Read it and wait. There are times God brings thoughts to my mind in those moments of waiting and reflection. Then I physically write them down. It’s a two-way communication between me and my Lord. It’s separate from the preacher, from the podcast, from the devotional book, from the Sunday school lesson. It’s me and the Lord.

Over time, this type of communication will bring you closer to that eternal worldview. It will be a worldview that mirrors Jesus’s

Fellowship in churches where the meat of God’s Word is preached

I can cook a really good ice cube. The recipe is H20 “Squared” (get it?? 🙂). When I follow that recipe its really is good. It’s melt-in-your mouth good. But it’s not enough to live on. But, thankfully, God blessed me with my wife. She cooks stews and soups. She grills steaks and chicken. She bakes cookies and cakes. So why would I be content to try to get by on ice cubes? We all have access to a way better cook than ourselves. Someone who can satisfy our hunger for meaning and purpose way better than we can. That’s Jesus Christ.

So where do we got to satiate that hunger? Well… We participate in that prayerful Bible study that I’m talking about, but we also spend time in God’s house listening to God’s Word preached.

But there’s a lot of places claiming to be God’s house that are really just social clubs.

A while back, I bought tide detergent in bulk in a 5 gallon bucket from a flea market. A few weeks later, on May 29 2025, we put the the old detergent dispenser in the sink at the apartment and my wife helped me slowly pour out of the bulk container because we didn’t have a funnel. It was watered down. You had to use way more and it was nearly as effective. A lotta people like a watered down life with watered down religion. It’s way more of the wrong stuff and not nearly as effective. The watered down tide had plenty of water and not enough detergent. It was lacking in the stuff that actually cleaned you but it had plenty of the extra (the water). Watered down religion lacks in the stuff that really cleans the sin from you life. It lacks A heartfelt relationship with Jesus. Also… I went to the flea market looking for something to clean my clothes. Y’all ever been to the flea market? It ain’t always the most clean place. So why am I going to the not clean place to look for something to clean with? Similarly why do we go to all these other places to “clean” our lives up. Jesus is the only way.

A Worldview that mirrors Jesus’s

• Do the things that make Him happy make you happy?
• Do the things that make Him sad make you sad?
• Do the things that make Him angry make you angry?

We have to have this perspective. There’s people who don’t know God who need to see it