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transfiguration

Perspective is Up to Us

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It’s Important to Have the Right One 

We can be blind even when things are staring us in the face. 

This is what happened with Jesus’ followers. Even those closest to Him. Those who knew Him better than anyone else on earth. They saw Him give sight to the blind, heal the lame, cast out demons, even bring people back to life. He had been teaching them and explaining what was going to happen. They still weren’t seeing things clearly. 

They were looking at things from a worldly perspective. 

A perspective is a particular way of looking at something. Too often when we have a perspective about something it is hard to change the way we see it.  

The Jews in the Old Testament were looking for relief from the Roman oppression and tyranny. They were convinced that Jesus was going to overthrow the persecution and oppression they had been experiencing and become their king. 

Even after Peter, James, and John shared in Jesus’ Transfiguration on the mountaintop … they still weren’t getting it.  

And we’re talking about a pretty amazing, out-of-this-world, experience.   

“He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.” (Matthew 17:1-8) His face was as bright as the sun! This is bright—really bright!  

Yet even after this experience, the disciples still missed the magnitude of what they were witnessing. They were still looking at things from a worldly perspective. They were looking at what was in it for them. 

There was bickering amongst them. Jesus told them they lacked faith. Judas betrayed Jesus to the church authorities. They all ran away when Jesus was arrested. They watched Jesus be whipped and beaten. Peter even denied knowing Jesus. Then He was crucified on a cross. This is not what they had envisioned.  

It wasn’t until after Jesus came back to life that they finally began to understand. 

Just like Jesus died to the world … we need to die to the world. 

Like Jesus’, we can have life after death. We need to nail our worldly perspective to the cross. We need to ask ourselves: what do I need to nail to the cross and leave behind? 

Having the right perspective is up to us and it will make an eternal difference. 

We Won’t Have Transfiguration Without Transformation

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Actions Lead to Results

Most of us are aware of the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration, Luke 9:28-36, where Peter, James and John went up on a mountain with Jesus.  While Jesus was praying the disciples fell asleep. (They seemed to do this often while Jesus was praying.) When they woke up, they saw a transfigured Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah. Peter was so enamored by what he witnessed that once again his humanity took over and he blurted out something before thinking.

We are all so much like Peter and the other disciples. We sleep through important things going on around us. We get so worn down with our everyday lives that we miss out on the miracles. Or we open our mouths and say things without thinking through it before we say it.

Most of us have had a mountain top experience. We wish they would last, but they don’t. Life isn’t just the mountain top, it’s also the valleys. We see the transfigured Jesus in His glory and want some of that. The problem is that it’s not that easy.

Being transfigured starts with transformation. The definition of transfiguration, in Dictionary by Farlex, “is a marked change in form or appearance. A change that glorifies or exalts.” Transformation on the other hand is “the act, process or operation of changing”, according to the Meriam-Webster dictionary.

Transformation is something that we can choose to do. Transfiguration is a result of choosing to be transformed.

We need to see Jesus for who he really is and ourselves for who we’re meant to be.