Looking at the Lord Jesus Christ

[b]Looking at the Lord Jesus Christ[/b]

The greatest and most important thing one can do in Christianity is to look at Jesus Christ. Looking at Jesus Christ is the answer to all your ailments, troubles, temptations, struggles and ills.

Are you struggling with sin? Are you weak in the midst of temptation? Do not focus on your struggles but on Your Saviour. Look away from your sin and look to Christ. Murray Mcheyne said, 'For every one look at your sin take ten looks at Christ'. By concentrating on your sin or temptation, you will only feed it and it will come after you with all the more power, but by looking away to Christ and fixing your eyes there you will not even think about your temptation. By looking to Jesus your fears or troubles will be driven away and the chains of besetting sins will be broken. This will all happen as you gaze at Jesus- doubt it not!

It is a rule of life that you become like what you behold. As we behold Christ- He will supernaturally change us so that we become like the One whom we are beholding. What does the Word say? 'We all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord' (2 Cor 3:18).

Do you want to become like Jesus? Then spend your time beholding Him. Spend as much time as you possibly can gazing at Him and on His perfections in secret prayer, Bible reading and meditation and worshipping Him in His presence.

The danger with us is that we can become a people who know all about Him, but without actually knowing Him. Often we can prefer wholesome Christian things to spending time beholding Jesus. Is it any wonder we are not more like Him?

He is the grand object of all Christian affections and desires. The divine Father was pleased to gaze upon Him throughout all eternity past and would have been perfectly happy doing so for ever without making a world. The Father sees His own perfections and glory shining so brightly from His Son, in whom He just delights! The holy angels and mighty seraphim are content- no, in utter bliss as they gaze longingly at the God-man- the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. So may we lesser beings be happy to spend our lives in beholding, adoring, worshipping, serving and delighting in God's Son.

The reason we are not more holy, not more Christ like, not more loving and pure and powerful is because we have not spent much time with the Holy One. If only we would take time to sit at His feet, to gaze into His eyes, to abide in Him, to touch His heart, to partake of His life, beauty and holiness. Then we would be more godly.

We need to look straight ahead and run this race hard, real hard looking at Jesus- throwing off the things that hinder and distract us. We need to look straight ahead at Jesus if we are to make progress along this path- not at ministry, not at goals, not at programs not even at good Christian stuff- but at Jesus Himself! We must not look to the left or the right for the minute we do so we shall like Peter sink into the waters of despair, self pity, depression and sinfulness. In fact, it is as impossible for us to walk through this life being a Christian (in the biblical sense of the word) without looking always at Jesus as it is for a man to walk across an ocean.

Sometimes we can even sink when we make too much of a particular doctrine or we focus on our sacrifice and cross bearing so much so that the thought of it becomes attractive to the mind because of radicalism but nightmarish to the flesh. Yes if we focus so much on our cross so that we focus more on that than on our Saviour I say we will struggle to die there. On the other hand if we make much of focusing on Jesus then we will be so caught up in Him and His loveliness and worthiness that we will embrace the cross and death to self for the love of Him- gladly and joyfully.

Therefore we must conclude that the main thing in true Christianity- the main occupation of the true Christian must be to behold Jesus Christ. No wonder so many of us have lost our way- it is because we’ve lost sight of the Saviour. We are like the Israelites in the dessert trying to feed on past manna- we cannot, we need fresh, regular revelations of Christ daily. Let us resolve to turn our eyes upon Jesus afresh this day and to spend our lives simply beholding Him. This was David’s one desire, for he said,

‘One thing I have desired of the LORD,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD,
And to inquire in His temple.’ Psalm 27:4

I say it again to my soul. Oh soul, look to Jesus! Oh eyes, be transfixed on Jesus! Look and live, look and be free, look and be pure, look and be holy, look and be powerful, look and be useful, look and be like Him. Oh look I say, look to Jesus. Spend your life savouring the Saviour.

\t“Oh turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face.
And the things of the world will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and graze.”

“Jesus, the glories of thy face, my songs of praise record:
I sing the overflowing grace of my beloved Lord.

Thou art the Father’s chief delight: Thy beauty angels view:
Thou art all fair in Zion’s sight: And my beloved too”.

Hi Here4Him,

"Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. "

Thank you for sharing such insight,i needed that.

Wow. This is the most encouraging word I've received for a long time. Thank you so very much. I definitely needed to hear that. Jeez, i mean, you just hit it on the nail :-)

Bless you,
Jordan

It is a rule of life that you become like what you behold. As we behold Christ- He will supernaturally change us so that we become like the One whom we are beholding.

This is so true! Much can be said about this, to be sure.

Beholding Christ Jesus is a Sabbath truth, meaning one of entering into God's rest. I like what Jesus did on the Sabbath in Nazareth. And after Jesus opened the book, found the verse, read it, and then sat down, it says: "And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him." (Luke 4:20, NKJV). Then the wondrous reality from the mouth of the Lord: "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

The Lord Jesus is the One who picks out a verse, if you will, and speaks it into our spiritual ears. He must open up the Bible to us or it will be just cold, dead letter. He will then close the book so we can focus just on that and not get distracted by a lot of other things. Then He waits until He has our full attention; we must gaze intently upon Him.

The good news is when we do, we will hear those glorious words: "Today [not tomorrow, not next week] this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." That which the Lord shows us is a revelation of Himself. Here it happened to be His ministry as the Messiah to preach, to heal the brokenhearted, to deliver the captives, to open blind eyes and so on. Our Lord Jesus is both Teacher and Curriculum. He loves to teach us by showing us Himself in the Bible (see Luke 24:27, 44-45).

The response of the people is also instructive: how not to look at Jesus, that is, just after the flesh. These people looked at Jesus and saw "Joseph's son", not the Son of David, the Son of God. They saw a carpenter who could fix broken wooden benches but not fix their spiritual lives. We wouldn't ever articulate, "Is this not Joseph's son?", but we live that when we catch a revelation of what Christ wants to do in our lives, and then think, "He won't do this for me. He won't fulfill this Scripture in my life. I've tried and nothing has happened." That's the problem: "I've tried." It's time to cease from our works and enter into Christ's works, our Sabbath rest.

This shows us it takes a miracle of the Holy Spirit to see the Lord aright. Just as our brother quoted from 2 Cor. 3:18, the Holy Spirit must be the One to fix our gaze upon our lovely Bridegroom's face, and see Him as the mighty One who will fulfill His word. All He asks is for me full attention--my full gaze--to Him who is the Author AND finisher of my faith. Christ is not only Lord of the Sabbath; He IS the Sabbath. If I wait on Him, He will open His own book and reveal of Himself what I need for today. Then by the Spirit of God, who knows the deep things of God, He will unveil the Lord Jesus to my heart in a fresh and living way. And when I see Him, I will be like Him. When He comes in His fullness on that Day, I will be fully like Him. But my hope is that when I see Him today in part (by faith through the help of the Holy Spirit) I will be like Him in part, closer to the ultimate goal of the full stature of Jesus Christ.

Josiah777 thank you sharing that. I am glad i let you reply to Ormly's question. I benefited much from what you said. If I am honest with you all, i know what i should do but am still learning how to do it.

But just as you described, the Holy Spirit revealed the Lord Jesus to me just an hour ago through the scriptures- I saw Him- it was beautiful!

I was reading in Micah: "but you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little of the thousands of Judah, yet i will raise from you to Myself One who will rule in Israel, who's goings forth have been from old, from everlasting". And bamm! i saw Him- and was then led to Prov 8:30 where we see Christ as wisdom personified saying 'I was daily His delight', and i saw something of the delight that God has in His Son- and i saw something of the worth and beauty of Jesus Christ! And then to think that God would crush His Son for a worm like me- incredible!

But how long has it been since i have had a revelation Of Jesus like this? Surely we should be seeking one daily?

Ormly wrote:
Perhaps my question should be how does one get a sustaining revelation of Jesus Christ that one could/can realize the "Rest" Hebrews 4 speaks of?

Rest is a big topic and I sure don't have all the answers. I know entering into God's rest has been something He has been gradually increasing me into in the last couple years especially. A principle of entering to God's rest as it relates to seeing Jesus Christ continually (like your question) has much to do with our heart's attitude in coming to Him. The more helpless I see I truly am to see Him, the more help I receive from Jesus. Helpless does not mean hopeless.

I know we are supposed to be poor in spirit and humble. But sometimes a picture is worth the proverbial thousand words. In Mark 7 and 8 there are two miracles Jesus performed, one on a deaf-mute and the other on a blind man. These miracles are pretty unique in the gospels and they show spiritual principles. The way that Jesus healed the deaf man physically is like the way He comes to open my ears spiritually. And likewise, the way Jesus healed the blind man illustrates how He desires to open my eyes to see Him. What struck me was the attitude in which they came to Christ. The crowd in both instances were begging the Lord to heal them. That has been a real helpful picture for me to see myself as I come to see and hear from the Lord. Yes, I have had my spiritual eyes and ears opened. But in comparison to eternity and all there is to know about Christ, it is as if I am deaf and blind. There is so, so much yet to see of Him and hear from Him. Seeing and hearing Him is a miracle; Jesus must intervene or I will see nothing and hear nothing.

It is helpful to see the contrast at the end of these accounts. In the case of the deaf-mute, it ends with one man with open ears and a spiritually deaf crowd. The crowd was repeatedly told by the Lord not to tell anyone, and that one simple command they were totally stone deaf to. The crowd was totally oblivious to their own deafness. They could see the neediness of this poor deaf chap, but in themselves they could not perceive. In reality they should have been begging Jesus to heal their ears, and they would have received a miracle too. So I take that as a warning for myself (for I have many times been like this crowd) not to see myself other than a deaf man needing Jesus to put His fingers into my ears (spiritually speaking, of course).

Likewise I come every time to God's Word knowing that I am like the blind man in need of a miraclulous touch from the Lord's hands. And just as they received their hearing and received their sight, by God's free grace I have received a sustaining revelation of seeing our Lord Jesus Christ day after day after day. When you know you are needy, it is not hard to cry out to Christ. And when He shows me His blessed self, it is my greatest treasure throughout the day. It is very easy to meditate on the Lord when He touches my heart like this, and it humbles me greatly how a God so high would stoop down so low.

Hope this helps some.