Turn Your Eyes

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There's light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O'er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conqu'rors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

    For me, old hymns hit the spot like nothing else. There's something precious about the knowledge that people living long before I was a twinkle in my parents' eyes, loved Jesus like I do. Actually, if I'm being honest with myself (and you,) I'd say they loved Him far more than I do. The idea that we are brothers and sisters in Christ with these saints, worshiping  together on both sides of Heaven, and continually captivated by a mighty Savior, brings their words to life for me centuries later. One of my very favorites is "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" originally titled "The Heavenly Vision" as I learned last week. In this tumultuous year that is 2020, I can't think of a message more fitting.

 Perhaps for the first time in many of our lifetimes, an event both shook the entire world and simultaneously shut it down. Not just our nation, our world, ground to an eerily silent halt. In what felt like an instant, everything was unmasked. Life was suddenly not permanent, health no one's guarantee, and  overreaching governments (and that's putting it nicely) stepped onto the stage armed with fear in one hand and thinly veiled totalitarianism on the other. Everyone looked at his neighbor, sizing him up: Are you with Us, or Them? Each searched and continues to search for something to hold on to, something to fight despair with, someone to look to. "To whom shall we go?" (John 6:68)

    

    I think this instinct (this urge to look to Another for comfort, guidance, and strength,) is one of the most natural to man. Yet it's also one of the most often perverted: I know personally that my natural heart would rather look anywhere else than at Jesus. If there is an easier, less painful, less convicting route, my flesh will take it in a heartbeat. 

'Anything. Anything, but Jesus.' is its constant pant and battlecry. 

    What strikes me as funny though, is that this: our Hell-bound retreat away from Him, is precisely the reason Jesus came! "For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost." (Luke 19:10) And because He sought us and saved us, I now have another, much louder song that soars past my feeble flesh: 

'Nothing. Nothing, but Jesus.'  

    So what does it mean to turn one's eye upon Jesus, to have this "Heavenly Vision"? How do these seemingly pressing "things of earth grow strangely dim" when they are everywhere we turn? Well dear reader, I know far from everything about it: I've barely scratched the surface really. But I'd love to share what's been so kindly taught to me through the Scriptures. Wanna take a look with me? 

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To look at Jesus accurately, we have to go to the Bible. To be in the Word is to be with Him! What does Jesus say about Himself there?  He reveals many, many things about Himself, but let's just look at a few for today. 

• He reveals that He is fully God, our Creator, and our Light: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."         (John 1:1-5)

• He reveals that He became fully Man in order to fulfill God the Father's rescue plan for all of us, and is our Lord: "...who, though He was in the form of God, did not account equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:6-11)

• He reveals that He loves us, He is our Savior, and as such is the reconciler of Man to God: "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.  More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." (Romans 5:6-11)

• He reveals that He is our hope: "To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:26-27)

If we take time to truly "look full" at these traits of Jesus' character revealed in Scripture, His "face" if you will, everything else can't help but fade in comparison! If you believe and declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that He has saved you from sin and enmity with God through His death and resurrection, you serve a Savior who is all of these things and so much more. No matter what goes on around us, no matter how short life is, no matter what freedoms we do or don't possess, we have Jesus. And who is He? Our Redeemer, our light, our Lord, our hope, and our portion forever, our Home. 

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    The older I get, the more I know that my gaze has to be firmly fixed on Christ. In fact, I would argue that it wasn't until I actually looked at Christ as a 6 year-old back in 2003 that I became a Believer. Sudden tragedy had struck my family more than a year before, and even at that young age I understood exactly what had happened. My world felt as though it had lost its sun, sliding down into an immense, black hole. I lived in constant fear of death, of separation from those I loved, and ultimately of God. He was the embodiment of everything fearful in my mind, and I knew He had the power to cast me and all other unbelieving sinners into Hell. I also knew that Jesus was  absolutely real, and the way out of my terrifying position. But I didn't see Jesus. Oh, I prayed the prayer each time it was offered on any children's Christian tv show and would run to tell my parents that "I got saved!" I'm so grateful the Lord gave my parents the wisdom to know that, not that I didn't mean what I prayed, but that I was definitely not praying for the right reasons, and not at all led by the Holy Spirit. That all changed one warm, May afternoon. 

    We'd somehow gotten a hold of a copy of "The Visual Bible for Kids" put together back in the 90's, and one of the VHS tapes was centered around Jesus' final days. I'd seen the oh-so popular "Jesus Film" (another video centered around Jesus' life, death, and resurrection) over and over, but it never 'did anything' for me, so I glibly popped this new tape into the player. This one was so, so different. 

    The Jesus portrayed seemed incredibly real, full of life, love, and joy, not just grave 'holiness.' I began to understand just exactly what Jesus did while on the earth. I began to understand that this Jesus, whom I'd heard of from the cradle, loved me. And I watched, absolutely devastated, as they killed him. 

    I knew that Jesus had died for our sins, but it wasn't until this moment that I put the pieces together (or rather they were put together for me.) I was a sinner. I had helped to put Jesus on that cross with my sin. And yet, He still loved me. He came, and died, simply because He loved me. Me?!  I couldn't finish the video. I ran from the living room weeping; completely and totally overwhelmed. Jesus loved me. He really, really loved me. 

    My sweet mama found me, curled up on the bonus room stairs, crying my little 6 year-old heart out. Somehow she was able to decipher the absolute snotty mess I'd become, and my barely coherent explanation. And she was given the wisdom to see that my eyes were, at last, open. I had seen Jesus. And in response to His overwhleming sacrifice and love, I wanted to love Him back by following Him. Even still, she asked questions: making sure I understood who He was, what He had done, and who I was if I obeyed the call to follow Him. She even asked, "You know how Jesus died for you, would you die for Him if you had to, if He asked you to?" I hesitated a little: I knew what death was, and it was still so scary. But it didn't take 15 seconds to know that I would. I had looked on death's face for quite some time: but now, I had looked on Jesus, full in His wonderful face. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that He was worth it. In that instant, death grew dim; decimated by the glory of Jesus. And from that day onward my life was, fully and forever, His. 

Dear reader, are you weary? Are you afraid of what's to come? Are you wandering? Are you His? Turn your eyes to Jesus. He is everything we need to make it through 2020, and every single day into eternity. 

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, 

let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, 

and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, 

who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, 

despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand 

of the throne of God." 

- Romans 12:1-2 (emphasis added)