Perspective on Living

Over two years ago, I was lying on an emergency room bed and upon reading my EKG, the medical staff said, “You are having a heart attack right now!” They made short work of prepping me for a heart catherization and one stent and twenty-seven months later I am doing well. In that moment, I had a deep, profound sense of peace. Live or die, I was at peace with God.

Very few people want to die. Naturally, we will pull out all the stops to live. Many people probably have a problem dying because they have had a problem living. The ten-million-dollar question is, “How are we to live?”

I think we need to live in this temporal world with an eternal perspective. This world is only a temporary dwelling and we are all renters instead of landlords in the end.

We all will eventually die, and we will all give an account to God. Living in this life with the understanding of an accounting before God will change our perspective. Putting our faith in Jesus, we can make our way on the dirt roads of earth eventually giving way to streets of gold in eternity.

Uncertainty in this world is at an intense level. Promises of better days are hollow sounding to many. Many people are anxious, some angry, others are confused over the state of the world not just a nation. Many are bracing for persecution, sensing the old hatred of the world against those who love God and Christ.

I am ever more enjoying my journey here because my hope is in a greater destination. My joy is in having a cause that is not built with stone and mortar, but One that transcends all of creation. This world is not my home, but it is my spiritual battleground as I fight the good fight of faith.

This fight is spiritual, not with guns and swords of steel. We wage this war on our knees before the one true God who sends His angels to war in the heavenly realms, whose tendrils flow to the fortified hills of this earth. We grasp the sword of the Spirit to influence the minds and hearts of the wayward and blind. We live as citizens of the Kingdom of God that is diametrically opposite of the kingdoms of this world. We speak life not death, and we emit the Light that eventually disperses all darkness.

We may die in the battle, but we will live until we die. And in our dying we shall live. The world may bury our names in dust, but the heralds of Heaven will declare our arrival.

We should well heed the words of an older Christian soldier whose back was scarred by pagan lashes. He exhorted his young spiritual son just a few years before his own death on the beheading block of Nero. These are some of his words:

“But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness./ Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses./ I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate,/ that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing,/ which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,/ who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.” (Apostle Paul to Timothy, 1 Timothy 6:11-16 NKJV)

“Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life…” (v. 12). Rejoice on your journey of faith.

Yours on the Journey,

Harry L. Whitt

Pathway Outreach Ministries