Need a change of perspective? I certainly do!
Here are a few thoughts I shared with our team of missionaries at our meeting on Monday.
Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires.
The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net. Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together.
The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand.
Put no trust in a neighbour; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.
Micah 7:1-6
It doesn’t look good, does it? By the way, do you recognize something from this passage that shows up in the New Testament? Yes, that last part is quoted by Jesus. Check it out in Matthew 10:26-42.
But watch what Micah says in the next three verses…
But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.
Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me.
I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication.
Micah 7:7-9
Quite a change in perspective, isn’t it, when he gets to I will look to the LORD…
When he looks to the Lord, everything looks different. Even his own sin looks different – because he looks for forgiveness – he looks for an advocate in the Judge Himself!
It’s so easy to stop at verse 6 – to stop at our circumstances, and to rarely look UP.
Back about 175 years ago, when I had family in Scotland, there was a Scottish preacher named Robert Murray M’Cheyne. He wrote these words in a letter (emphasis mine):
Learn much of your own heart, and when you have learned all you can, remember you have just seen but a few yards into a pit that is unfathomable. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jer. 17:9.
Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief!
Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love, and repose in his almighty arms.
Cry after divine knowledge and lift up your voice for understanding. Seek her as silver, and search for her as for hid treasure, according to the word in Proverbs 2:4.
See that verse 10 [Proverbs 2:10] be fulfilled in you. Let wisdom enter into your hearts and knowledge be pleasant to thy soul; so you will be delivered from the snares mentioned in the following verses.
Let your soul be filled with a heart-ravishing sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in Him. Let the Holy Spirit fill every chamber of your heart; and so there will be no room for folly, or the world, or Satan, or the flesh.
If there is any quote that M’Cheyne is known for, it’s that one: For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.
We might know people who are naval-gazers – people constantly looking at their sin and wondering if they really are saved, for example. “Oh, I’m just such a sinner. I don’t really see the Spirit working in my life.”
It’s good to look at yourself (Micah 7:9), but don’t stop there – don’t linger there – look far more at the Saviour!
Or there are people who focus on their failures – who just feel like their whole lives are of no use to anyone. It’s find to evaluate yourself – but spend far more time looking to the One who really has it all in His hands!
Or we might even spend time looking at our successes. “I must be where God wants me – look at all the good I’m doing!” or “Look at how God is blessing this work! Look at what a great book I wrote – what a great report I finished – what a great house I built – ” whatever it may be.
Even there, shouldn’t we take more of a look at Christ and what He has done, than our own “successes”?
One look at me, ten looks at Christ.
One look at my failures, ten looks at Christ.
One look at my successes, ten looks at Christ.
What a wonderful way to regain perspective. It really doesn’t all depend on us. Our failures will not spoil God’s eternal plan, and our successes will not prop it up. Our sins may be great, but our Saviour is much more than 10 times greater.
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.
He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
(Micah 7:18-19)
