#41. The Lord's Supper is a Place to Have Proper Perspective Restored

Psalm 73:16–20 — When I pondered to understand this, It was troublesome in my sight 17 Until

I came into the sanctuary of God; Then I perceived their end. 18 Surely You set them in slippery

places; You cast them down to destruction. 19 How they are destroyed in a moment! They are

utterly swept away by sudden terrors! 20 Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when aroused,

You will despise their form.

We have been considering the various aspects of self-examination that it is good (and even

essential) to perform before and during our participation in the Lord's Supper. On a similar

theme, we want for the next few meditations to understand that the Lord's Supper is a wonderful

place for us to restore a proper perspective concerning ourselves, our lives, our fellowship and

many other things.

In our passage, Asaph the psalmist had spent too much time stewing over what was a one-sided

perspective. He was a believer in the Lord, living as best he could for the Lord in a hostile

world. But as long as he spent his time in the world, looking at things from a worldly

perspective, all he could see was unbelievers prospering and having a good time, ignoring God

and His Law and apparently getting away with it or even being rewarded in this life. In contrast,

Asaph was denying himself, suffering and coming under what seemed like daily discipline from

God for trying to live a holy life. It got so bad, he confesses, that he almost stumbled and slipped

in his faith - considering whether it wasn't in fact pointless to live for the Lord as he was

attempting to do. And then something happened that gave Asaph some much-needed adjustment

of his perspective - he came into the presence of the Lord at His temple.

When we start to look at the things happening on earth from a spiritual and eternal point of view,

everything changes. Asaph could now see that the "pleasure" of the wicked was just a few short

years preceding a plunge into eternal misery and torment. They were destined to be swept away

into destruction, whereas Asaph was being fitted through his trials and afflictions for eternal

glory and bliss. He came to see the value of his relationship with the Lord, and it was

incalculable compared with that of the tinsel and trinkets with which the world attempts to find

satisfaction. But it wasn't until Asaph approached the Lord that this correction in his perspective

became possible.

It should not surprise us to learn, then, that the Lord's Table is a wonderful place to get our own

spiritual perspective on matters corrected to become somewhat closer to 20/20. If this process

and experience is what the Lord used to save Asaph from falling away, how gracious that He

gives us several means by which we may have the same correction applied to our spiritual vision

- not least among which is the Lord's Supper! How we should welcome this opportunity and

make use of it as frequently as possible!

Over the next few meditations, then, we will see how powerfully the Table can be used for good

in our lives by making sure we see things in a correct perspective as believers.

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