Saturday 25 March 2017

I will lift up my eyes

Unto You I lift up my eyes, O You who dwell in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, So our eyes look to the LORD our  God, Until He has mercy on us. – Psalm 123.1-2

There are few things worse than a down-hearted Christian who is full of gloom. It is easy to get downcast when we look at all the stuff going on around us. If all we do is look down at all this we are certainly going to be discouraged.

The Bible has the solution there. David said ‘unto You I lift up my eyes, O You who dwell in heaven.’ That reminds me of where Paul wrote to the Colossians that if they are truly in Christ they ought to set their affections, and eyes, on heavenly things and not earthly things. Instead of focusing on the difficulties that line our race of life we ought to be looking at Jesus as the Author and Finisher of our faith standing at the finish line.

So much of how we deal with our life is what we tend to focus on. It is up to you and me to decide if we are going to get caught up in all this mess or if we are going to look to Jesus as our hope.

I think of Peter walking on the water. He did fine until he focused on the problems, but when he sank he looked to Jesus and cried out ‘save me!’

When Stephen was being martyred he cried out that he saw Jesus standing at the Father’s right hand.

In our times of trouble instead of being downcast we ought to, so to say, pick up our chins, look up, and gaze on the face of Jesus as our hope to carry us through.

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