The Vantage Point

Have you ever noticed how the same situation can feel completely different depending on where you’re standing?

As a kid, our family had simple traditions that felt magical, like holiday cereals (Coco Pops for me, Froot Loops for Caleb!) and a “vacation cereal” sampler box we were only allowed to eat straight from the carton. Best of all was the “Lizard Walk”, a “tourist attraction” we visited on the Gold Coast where we’d count lizards on the path from our hotel to Pacific Fair Shopping Centre. It took me a surprisingly long time to realise that this wasn’t a famous attraction at all… just a clever walk to the shops my parents turned into an adventure.

Same path, different perspective. The perspective changed everything—our energy, our joy, even how willing we were to keep walking.

That’s the heart of this message: your vantage point matters.

A vantage point is a position that gives you a clearer, wider, advantageous view. It’s often on higher ground. From this position, you see more accurately, think more clearly, and act more confidently. Soldiers understand this. Hikers do too. Spiritually, it’s just as true.

Recently, while reading chapters six through eight of Romans, I felt the Holy Spirit underline this passage: “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14, NKJV). If you belong to Jesus, your spiritual “address” has changed. You no longer stand under the dominion of sin, shame, fear, lack, or condemnation. Instead, you’ve been raised with Christ to a new vantage point of grace, freedom, and victory. The battle around you may look the same, but where you’re fighting from is completely different.

I sensed the Lord say, “My people are losing battles because they’re standing in the wrong place. They’re praying from under what I’ve already put under their feet.” Many of us are trying to climb uphill against an enemy that looks huge because we’ve forgotten we already have the higher ground in Christ.

There are two ways to face the same issue:

• From below. I’m stuck. Fear/anxiety/bitterness/sickness has me. I’m pleading for relief.
• From above. I’m seated with Jesus (Ephesians 2). Sin is not my master (Romans 6). I’m speaking to the mountain from the ground of grace, not begging from the valley of guilt.

Nothing in the circumstances may have changed yet, but everything in you has changed. Authority, peace, and clarity flow differently from the vantage point of grace.

This is not just about obvious “bad behaviours”. When the Bible says don’t let sin reign, we often think of lying, cheating, immorality. But “sin” also shows up as the fruit of the fall: anxiety, shame, bitterness, jealousy, fear, chronic defeat, and generational patterns that insist, “This runs in your family”. Romans 6:14 speaks to all of it. In Christ, none of these things is your master.

You don’t earn this higher ground through effort or years of trying harder. Jesus brings you there by grace the moment you trust Him.

Practically, we live from that vantage point by choosing our stance each day. We locate our feet (“I’m not under this, but I’m in Christ, under grace”), name the lie trying to sit over us, and speak from authority by praying Scripture and praising on purpose to realign perspective. We then need to take a small, corresponding action that someone standing in victory would take, like booking the appointment, sending the message, forgiving the person, opening the Bible, taking the walk.

Try praying this aloud today:

In Jesus’ name, I stand on the vantage point of grace.

I am forgiven, redeemed and free.

Sin is not my master, and neither are fear, shame, sickness or lack.

I speak to this situation from victory, not for victory.

It is under my feet because I am seated with Christ. Amen.

One more Gold Coast story. The local municipality eventually “improved” our old Lizard Walk with paved paths, neat edges and fewer bushes. But last year our family walked it anyway. It looked different, yet we still counted 17 lizards! Why? We chose the lens of wonder again.

You may be walking a familiar path that now feels paved over with difficulty or disappointment. Choose your vantage point. Wonder is still possible. Victory is still yours in Christ. The walk changes when your where changes.

This week, consider three simple practices:

1. Read Romans 6–8 and Ephesians 2 and mark every phrase describing your position in Christ.
2. Identify one area where you’ve been praying “from below” and write a new, Scripture-shaped prayer to pray “from above”.
3. Share your testimony with someone when you notice your perspective shift and what changed.

Same path. New perspective. Higher ground.

Let’s live and fight from the vantage point Jesus paid for.