Fixing my eyes on Jesus

I recently had a bit of a breakthrough. It was more of a deeper understanding of something I thought I already knew.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to focus on certain spiritual disciplines in my life that I never put much of a priority on before. One is memorizing scripture. We are doing this in the discipleship group I’m a part of, which makes it somewhat easier since others are doing it with me, but my personal goal with it is to truly know God’s word and hold it in my heart. It’s not a matter of knowing it just to say you know it. I’m not trying to earn a gold star from the Lord here. But my purpose behind it is to actually apply it to my life. God’s Word is life-changing, and when we can recall His truths to ourselves, we can “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5), just as Paul tells us to do.

The Psalmist tells us to delight in Scripture. Delight means to take great pleasure in. The goal here is to enjoy God’s Word and find joy in it. It’s not meant to be a burden, but a great blessing because this is how we come to know God. The Bible is God’s written Word that reveals who He is and what He is doing to redeem humanity from sin. How awesome is it that we have access to this great blessing? Of course, we can delight in His Word by reading and studying it, but I currently struggle with being able to recall certain things, so I want to memorize the words. I want to be able to recite them when I need to hear them. I need that.

If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
Psalm 119:92

If we don’t have Scripture to lean on and trust in, we will end up relying on ourselves and our own strength. The unbeliever would not see why that is a bad thing, as we should have confidence in ourselves and our own abilities, but the believer knows humans are weak. We are not perfect. We lack holiness. We lack righteousness. We sin. We can deceive ourselves. We can talk ourselves into things that are unwise and untrue. How could we fully trust in ourselves when we have access to someone who is the ultimate authority and who is holy and perfect and immutable and omnipotent and omniscient? Why wouldn’t we instead lean on Him? By doing so, we can’t go wrong. This is why I’m trying to set my eyes on Him and take those deceiving thoughts captive and focus on what is true — the Father, Son and Spirit.

Aside from being able to recall God’s Word, I think fixing your eyes on Jesus can simply involve a change of the mindset. We’re called not to worry about the earthly things (Matthew 6), but to trust in the Lord. Matthew writes in his gospel that the eye “is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.” It’s such a big emphasis in the Bible that we fix our eyes on the things that are eternal (Colossians 3:2), that we stay kingdom-minded and not focus so much on things here in the world that we can’t truly control anyway. Don’t you think that is intentional that the emphasis is so great? I do.

When I’m having a bad day, I want to reset my focus and not only recall Scripture, but recall the things the Scriptures tell us is true of God.

He is always with us and will never leave us. (Joshua 1:9, Isaiah 41:10, Matthew 28:20, Psalm 48:14)
He loves us. (John 3:16, Romans 5:8, 1 John 3:1)
We are forgiven and have been redeemed. (Ephesians 2:8, 1 John 1:9)
He works all things together for our good and His glory. (Romans 8:28)
He is faithful. (Deuteronomy 7:9, 2 Timothy 2:13, 1 Corinthians 1:9)
He gives us peace. (Philippians 4:7, Isaiah 32:17, John 14:27)
He strengthens us. (Isaiah 40:29, Isaiah 40:31, Isaiah 41:10)
And so much more!

This has honestly helped so much. I realized I wasn’t giving God much room to help me and guide me. I was relying on my own abilities and strength, which I’m sure I will do again and again. But, now that I’m being intentional on trying to focus more on His Word and His promises and His goodness, I can have so much more peace in my day because He’s the one in control of it. If something does not work out how I want it to or if the day goes south, I don’t need to make it a big deal because I know the Lord is still with me and in Him, I have all that I need.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2

Some verses that have recently been especially helpful for me to rest in and lean into:

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23
“Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.” Psalm 37:4-5
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.” Jeremiah 17:7
“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” Isaiah 12:2

I’m starting to see a theme here. 🙂