Since the 90’s I’ve heard the phrase “paradigm shift” used in motivational talks. The speakers promote a check-up from the neck up. Their messages address changing our view and perspective of life in order to change our life. In essence, if you can change your habitual thinking, you can change your living reality. This has just enough biblical merit to make it somewhat true. The application and methodology might not be valid for the believer, but I do believe that the Spirit gives us a sound mind, which is the mind of Christ. This is a huge paradigm shift from the mind of the flesh. The Mind of Christ, when it leads my thoughts, does change my actual reality.
My Mind in Paradigm Shift
Why am I talking about paradigms? Because I have had the Lord place an exclamation mark on one of mine. For years I have had a Kingdom perspective, which is seeing all of life with my eternity in mind. And with the passing of Kenneth, Martha’s husband, I’m seeing it in a fresh and alive way. Death always underscores the meaning of life. It’s like our focus on the temporal is exposed by the realness of our eternity. It’s a good reality check.
So here’s the bottom line of what God is underscoring for me. If we live our life for this life, we will live blinded to our life’s eternal purpose. We will go about pandering to get and experience all we can here, while missing the true purpose of life, which is to prepare us for our eternity.
Is it okay with us that God chooses to spend our whole life for an eternal purpose? It might not appear to serve me in this life but it will for all eternity. For instance, look at my call to singleness. If I believed this life was my actual life, I could become upset that I didn’t have a wife to experience life and intimacy with, I had no children to carry on my name and I didn’t get to have the joys of family life. If I had a temporal view of life, I’d be very upset. I’d feel cheated and perhaps even become bitter. But as I look at it in the light of my eternity, I can see that the Lord has a greater purpose in mind. His Eternal Reward has been planned throughout my entire life, and I actually have been created and fit with this in mind.
Eternity in the Mind of Elijah
Just think, what if your life was ordered and set for the purpose of overcoming the Jezebel spirit? I believe wholeheartedly that Elijah’s life assignment was to overcome Jezebel evil. And I can assure you that Queen Jezebel was not the first “Jezebel” in Elijah’s life. That isn’t how the spiritual life works. He had an onslaught of Jezebels in his life. We are given many opportunities to learn our life lessons, especially when they’re our life assignments (Hahaha).
Is it fair that Elijah’s entire earthly life was encompassed in warfare? Was God somehow treating him unjustly? Was he robbed of his earthly life? If he had viewed his life as his possession and his only shot for living, the answer would likely be yes. But Elijah had an eternal view in mind. He didn’t see his life as if it were all there was. Quite the contrary, Elijah’s life here was an investment for his eternal one.
We’re told in the Word that we are just sojourners in this life, that we are passing through like pilgrims. All that transpires in our earthly life is for our eternal benefit not immediate gratification. We aren’t gathering all we can here before we die, because this life is only an investment for our next. Having this view lessens my anxiety about how the Lord chooses to spend my life. It also gives me great peace that He’s in control.
Whatever my life assignment is, I want to harvest it for my eternal benefit. As He chooses to spend my life, it’s with a heavenly gift and lesson in mind. I will take from this life what I will need for my eternity. This life is but a blip, whereas my eternity is forever. Though all I know is my now, in faith I trust Him with my today and tomorrow.
We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace.
1 Chronicles 29:15 NLT
Wonderful message John. God’s perspective is so freeing… that is spiritual!
“Is it okay with us that God chooses to spend our whole life for an eternal purpose”? ” ….Was he robbed of his earthly life?” If he had viewed his life as his possession and his only shot for living, the answer would likely be yes. But Elijah had an eternal view in mind… John, you gave the the secret here, “his possession”. Whether we have an eternal view or not, depends on how we see our life, as our possession or His. Are we willing to be owned? That’s very testing. There is no question, the passing of our… Read more »
I find it remarkable, that an eternal point of view on the one hand would make my mundane, sometimes all-too-mundane, tiny, everyday life more bearable, as it adds a worth which otherwise would not be there;
on the other hand it opens my heart to the expectation of something greater, to a possible “call to overcome the
Jezebel-Spirit:) ” or something else, something new I would not think of – but God might.
So I can live my life content and wide-open, both; it changes everything.
Amen. What a joy.
Love abounding, John.