A Command to Remember IV: The Object of Our Focus
For the last several weeks, we have considered the sweet command of Hebrews 12:2: looking, fixing, focusing our eyes upon the author of finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ. Dr. John Snyder and Teddy James have previously discussed the foundational principles necessary for obeying this command. Today, they will address whom we are blessed to look towards.
Have you considered what a blessing it is to behold Christ? He is the image of the invisible God. Those throughout the Old Testament who wanted to behold God could not do so and live. But in Jesus Christ, we have the full deity of God and all of his attributes coming to meet us in friendship and mercy.
So how do we gaze upon Christ? There are many passages we could look to, and we have them listed below for you to look up and examine for yourself. In these passages, we see him in eternity past, in his incarnation, learning and growing, teaching, persecution, the cross, the resurrection, and now in his enthronement in heaven!
These gazes should fill our souls with hope and love for God. Charles Spurgeon said it well, “And we invite you to look to this scene that you may be lightened. What are your doubts this morning? Whatever they be, they can find a kind and fond solution here, by looking at Christ on the cross. You have come here, perhaps, doubting God's mercy; look to Christ upon the cross, and can you doubt it then? If God were not full of mercy, and plenteous in his compassion, would he have given his Son to bleed and die? Think you, that a Father would rend his darling from his heart and nail him to a tree, that he might suffer an ignominious death for our sakes, and yet be hard, merciless, and without pity? God forbid the impious thought! There must be mercy in the heart of God, or else there had never been a cross on Calvary. But do you doubt God's power to save! Are you saying in yourself this morning, ‘How can he forgive so great a sinner as I am?’ Oh! look there, sinner, look there, to the great atonement made, to the utmost ransom paid. Dost thou think that that blood has not an efficacy to pardon and to justify?” If your gaze has been fuzzy and unfocused. If you have found yourself looking more at life, stress, or even the good gifts of God more than at God, consider the words Theodore Monod wrote in his small pamphlet:
Looking unto Jesus—NOW, if we have never looked unto Him!|
Looking unto Jesus—AFRESH, if we have ceased doing so!
Looking unto Jesus—ONLY! Looking unto Jesus—STILL!
Looking unto Jesus—ALWAYS!
With a gaze more and more constant, more and more confident, "changed into the same image from glory to glory" (2 Corinthians 3:18), and thus awaiting the hour when he will call us to pass from earth to Heaven, and from time to eternity—the promised hour, the blessed hour, when at last "we shall be like Him, for we shall Him as He really is!" (1 John 3:2).
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Show Notes
See our previous episodes where we mentioned Looking Unto Jesus
Listen to The Whole Counsel a day early on the Media Gratiae App.
Scripture References:
John 1
1 Peter 1:20
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:52
Hebrews 5:8-9
1 Peter 2:21-23
Hebrews 12
Colossians 2
Zechariah 12:10
John 19
Ephesians 1
Romans 4:25
Revelation 5:6-14
1 Thessalonians 4:16
2 Thessalonians 1:7-10