Fix your eyes on Jesus

Fix your eyes on Jesus for setting your goals I have the ugliest, most comfy, most loved pair of old sweats. And I have the ugliest, most comfy, most loved pair of old Nikes. I tell Melinda, our secretary, I'm gonna wear my sweats and Nikes in heaven forever -- unless I'm not supposed to wear anything at all. In which case, by then I'll look terrific. Normally I only wear those uglies when I run, which is in our own neighborhood and pretty private. But the other day I had them on when I ducked briefly into the office, and Melinda and Ray both hooted when they saw my backside. I had a big split in the seam where I sit down. This called for drastic action. I absolutely hate to sew, but that night I sat down with needle and thread and laboriously put my dear old sweats back together again. Which is to say, no matter the awkwardness or pain or inconvenience, most of us manage to do what we most want to do. What do you most want to do in your life? Whether you're following a carefully written list of personal goals or playing it by ear, you're probably doing it. What is it you somehow manage to make room for, no matter what else must be sacrificed? Feeling good? Reading? Television? Weekends away in the R.V.? Your wardrobe? Your house? Certain relationships? Your job or career? Bowling? Skiing? Keeping up on the news? Don't excuse, don't deceive yourself. Scrutinize your life to see if you have loves unworthy of eternity that are sacrosanct, inviolable. If you do, they're the "weights" of Hebrews 12:1. In themselves they're not sins, but they will certainly hinder you. And they degrade you: They make sure you don't get to be that great man or woman of God that you could otherwise become. What a waste. What a tragedy. Listen to the final paragraph of Ray's little book, Lord, Make My Life a Miracle: Your danger and mine is not that we become criminals, but rather that we become respectable, decent, commonplace, mediocre Christians. The twentieth-century temptations that really sap our spiritual power are the television, banana cream pie, the easy chair, and the credit card. The Christian wins or loses in those seemingly innocent little moments of decision. Lord, make my life a miracle!1 Right now, fix your eyes on Jesus. How can you get ready for that moment in eternity when you stand before Him? For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him, for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10). Verse 9 of that same passage answers how you get ready: So we make it our goal to please him. Above all else -- your goal to please Him! You scratch and claw for this; for this you discipline yourself; you get others to hold you accountable. Come hell or high water, you stretch to be, to do, what pleases Him. Whatever it costs you, it's worth it. It's the fine pearl which you sell everything you've got to buy (Matthew 13:45-46). To please Him you sacrifice, if need be, feeling good, reading, television, weekends away in the R.V., your wardrobe, your house, certain relationships, your job or career, your bowling, your skiing, your keeping up on the news . . . . It's your life goal: to please Him. And it will break down into more specific yearly goals, maybe three-month goals, today's goals. Make them practical; make them measurable. Pleasing Him will work out differently in your life than in anyone else's, because He has made you unique. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). Be very careful, then, how you live; understand what the Lord's will is (5:15,17). "And get tough," says 1 Corinthians 9: "Don't pamper your body; beat it and make it your slave!" Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. p.151. Let's pray. O Lord, I deliberately refuse to gaze fondly at my toys, my conveniences, my pleasures, my comfort zones. I want to fix my eyes on You. I want to make it my life goal, and my day-by-day goal, to please You. As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, As the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, So our eyes look to the Lord our God (Psalm 123:2). Show me Your will, O lord, and help me to do it. That's what You most want, and now that's what I most want -- so it will please us both. For Your own sake, amen. * * * * * I thank thee for showing me the vast difference between knowing things by reason and knowing them by the spirit of faith. By reason I see a thing is so; by faith I know it as it is. I have seen thee by reason and have not been amazed, I have seen thee as thou art in thy Son and have been ravished to behold thee. --Old Puritan prayer