So, from now on, we view no one from a fleshy point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a fleshy point of view, we view him no longer that way. If anyone is in Christ, there is new creation: everything old has passed away, see, everything becomes new! II Corinthians 5.

&8220;We no longer view anyone kata sarka, according to the flesh,&8221; Paul writes in some of his most personal and autobiographical writing. Paul, the past Phrarisee, the man who only knew how to look at God, the world and himself through &8220;the flesh&8221; finds himself looking at his life all over again through God&8217;s mercy.

Just a few ways back, Paul says he thought he was as good as dead and his ministry in places like Corinth was on life support at best. Things had been going about as badly there as in his own trial proceeding. Yet, against all expectation, Paul suddenly finds himself set free, just as word arrives that the Corinthians are longing for reconciliation with their father in the faith. Even the apostle of grace is bowled over by the unexpected turn of events.

And for Paul, it is reason to think again about what faith is all about. In short, faith simply means looking at everything and everyone with fresh eyes, not the way we so quickly and comfortably look at the world with ourselves at the center of everything.

Anyone who spends any time reading Paul knows that &uot;the flesh&uot; sums up for Paul the drive of humans beings to focus everything on ourselves, to make ourselves the standard of right and wrong, to evaluate everyone else by whether we personally like them or not. The flesh is the drive within us that puts ourselves in the place of God.

The call of being Christian is to have the mind of Christ, which mean to look not at what we can see in ourselves or in others, even what we can see about life and and death, but to view the world from periscope of God.

So, we live not by what we can see with our eyes but by faith in the God who sees us in mercy.

Robert Montgomery serves as preaching minister of Cahaba Valley Church