Hebrews 12: 2
Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
We’ve all heard many times that we need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Here is the thing about that. When you take your eyes off of the problem which is right before you and put them, instead, on Jesus, your attitude moves from stressed and overwhelmed towards increasing faith, and the longer you are able to keep your intention focused upon him, the more that faith grows.
Recently, I have been very frustrated with my wrist. As you may remember, the bones knitted back together quickly after the break and subsequent surgery. However, the post surgical recovery has been a challenge for me. The tendons grew shorter and stiffened from being locked in one position for three months. However, understanding it does little to combat the frustration. In my prayer time, Father reminded me to keep my eyes focused on Jesus because it is he who builds my faith. I immediately went to this scripture and was encouraged. Will you read it again?
I saw this scripture in a new light. There are two parts of the scripture. First, we are encouraged to fix our eyes on Jesus. The second part is about Jesus and what he endured for the prize set before him. Usually, a sentence does not contain two separate ideas, so it stands to reason and literary construction that the two parts of the sentence are related. That day, when God brought this to mind, I finally saw the relationship in crystalline form.
Jesus needed faith to endure the cross and the shame. It is beyond challenging to understand how he was able to endure what he did much less to endure it with the grace and composure he showed. We could say he was able to endure because of his divinity but that isn’t it at all. It was faith that upheld him. On the day that Yahweh opened my eyes to this scripture, I saw very clearly that Jesus fixed his eyes on God the Father. He held before his eyes the vision that Father had given him and the prize that obedience would win. His gaze, his focus, those are the things which got him past the struggles. He kept his mental focus on his father rather than the problems before him.
If we continue to look at the problem, straining to overcome it mentally or physically, then our focus becomes the problem. God is showing us here that the way to overcome is to bring Jesus back into the equation. Fix your internal gaze back on him rather than on the problem. With your mental focus on him, ask him what you should do regarding the issue at hand. You see, if all I see in my mind’s eye is the challenge with my wrist, it becomes an obstacle in my path. If instead, I turn my eyes and look at Jesus, then the problem moves to the side. It is now out of my focus. Sure, it is still there, but it is no longer looming in front of me. It is like a rock on the side of the road that can be bypassed. Jesus and his authority become central and everything else is secondary. He is larger in the picture than any problem and faith grows while problems diminish.
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