Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace
There are two things that quickly give rise to discontent and fear.
When we have too much time on our hands we can let our focus wander to ourselves.
We incur an identity crisis.
When we have our focus distracted by too much going on around us and we forget our real focus.
We become fearful and overwhelmed.
God calls us to look out of the right window.
Look upon our heavenly home and God and focus our heart and prayer on them as Daniel did when he went to his windows facing Jerusalem to pray every morning.
Today he might call us to look up instead of around at the world and to possibly shut those other windows which distract us in the wrong direction.
What is right in your focus, sight and direction is important.
Like Lot’s wife who looked back and consequently lost what she was focused on going forward towards.
Being obedient to where we put our focus is important.
Hope is deferred, disappointment strikes if we look out the window towards the world.
“forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
It is important also for us to know our identity.
In Acts it clearly shows that demons, can make their home in those who do not know whereas they do recognise Jesus and those belonging to him.
It is impossible for us to know our identity until we first know God because we are made in His image.
Also it was only after Simon and Peter recognised Who Jesus was that Jesus could name them as Simon blessed and Peter Rock.
Trying to find the identity question of “who am I ? “ is a worthless pursuit.
The question has to be turned around to “who is God?”to be worthy of who we recognise ourselves as.
Everything is about Him.
Therefore revelation of who He is is of the utmost importance to our own self worth and identity security.
Other people’s affirmation about us is of little relevance to life and yet we will acknowledge times when we invest in our success rating, our intellect, our importance and position in society, our looks and self image.
Better to invest in God and our image and being affirmed by Him.
He is supreme.
The great I am .
Jesus comes into our lives not to serve us but so that we can serve.
He is unveiling us to reveal His glory through us.
We are being made righteous and are worthy.
In the knowledge of this we are transformed from the inside out.
Inadvertently we also discover what our own identity is!
Not by seeking it but by seeking God’s.
God increasingly puts blinkers on us to help us to lookup and home to Him and forget about what surrounds and distracts.
In so doing we turn from worthless pursuits to those which are worthy.
The illustration shows us locking eyes with the burning eyes of Jesus and darkness pushed away.
Six Scriptures that come to mind:
“When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.”Daniel 6:10 ESV
“Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.”Luke 17:32-33 ESV
“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,”“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”Philippians 3:13-14 ESV
“He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”Matthew 16:15 ESV
“But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”Acts 19:15-16 ESV
“Having determined our destiny ahead of time, he called us to himself and transferred his perfect righteousness to everyone he called. And those who possess his perfect righteousness he co-glorified with his Son!”Romans 8:30 TPT
The song. Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. Hillsong
https://youtu.be/7Ka7bVQmbnk
Lessisgreater 