Look Well!

Look Well!

Hebrews 12:2 AMPC

[2] Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 

There is power in the eyes. In fact, the eyes represent one of the gates through which both earthly and eternal impact are defined. There is also a scale of preference and priority for what should hold my eyes, as I am not able to do two eternally opposing things at the same time. That is what the verse above makes clear. It starts by making it clear that must be a looking away from something, and a looking to Jesus. That looking away is very important. Ask Lot's wife; in fact, maybe the third shortest verse in the bible, Luke 17:32 simply asks us to 'Remember Lot's wife'. Why is this important? She was asked, along with members of her family, to run for the hills and not look back, when the Lord was sending judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Whatever it was that was the exact attraction that made her look back, we may never know, but we know the consequences of her looking back. 

I must avoid anything that takes my eyes off Jesus to anything or anyone else. The price for distraction is usually very high. There is an earthly, as well as eternal, benefit to looking on Jesus. As the verse above makes clear, He has walked in our shoes, felt what we now feel and is able to sympathise with our infirmities and weaknesses. There is the birth and sustenance of our faith in Jesus, which is made possible by the life and death of Jesus on the cross. There is also the completing of our faith in the same Jesus, as He is the One who has been where we are now, and is also the One who has been where we want to be. Who else can take me to the place where I need to be, than the One who is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, where all of life starts, and to whom an accounting will be demanded at the end of life itself?

It did not also come to Jesus easily. He had to go the way of shameful death on the cross, in order to secure for us the life we now have. He is called the Leader and Source of our faith, because He has done what no other person or authority could do for us. He is able to keep us grounded and focused, until we lay hold of the maturity and perfection that are at the end of our walk of faith down here. There must have been something that kept Him going, even when faced with the hard and bitter choices ahead. Like Jesus, we also fix our eyes on the joy at the end of our current experiences. We endure the pain of this present earthly phase; we hold God's hand as we pass through difficult terrains. We hold on to hope that the end will definitely be better. I ask God for grace for this race, and help on my life's journey, so that I will end well. God's time of favour is here.