Fix your eyes on Jesus

The "Ancient of Days," Daniel called Him. Take a long, hard look at Jesus Christ in the far-away past . . . back, back, back . . . . Back before creation, the Father had loved Him (John 17:24). Back before the world began, He shared the Father's glory (John 17:5), and with Him made all things (Colossians 1:16). He declares, speaking as our Wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30), I was there when he set the heavens in place . . . and when he marked out the foundation of the earth. Then was I the craftsman at his side (Proverbs 8:27, 29, 30). God in Christ separated light from darkness, separated water above from water below, separated seas from dry ground. God in Christ ordered the ground to fill up with seeds producing vegetation, the waters to fill up with fish, the land to fill up with animals and insects . . . Then God in Christ commanded the plants and creatures to die, their bodies to fall back into the ground, their remains to compress and become coal, diamonds, oil, gas -- vast, vast reserves of materiel, probably not all discovered even yet . . . Why? All these lived not for themselves but for us. God in Christ was forming them long ago to heat winters they would never live through, to light buildings they would never see. God in Christ, with infinite wisdom and skill and love, was preparing a place for us. (The Ancient of Days, the Eternal One, loved us even back then.) Yet we've been destroying the place He prepared, by our sin. How sad God must have been, to have to tell Adam, "Because you listened to your wife and ate . . . cursed in the ground" (Genesis 3:17)! And ever since then, We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (Romans 8:22). The earth dries up and withers . . . The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws . . . therefore a curse consumes the earth (Isaiah 24:4-6). A woman once exclaimed to her famous pastor, Dr. Charles Spurgeon, "Oh, Dr. Spurgeon, I'm afraid the world is coming to an end!" "Never mind, my dear," he said; "we can get along without it." That's the good news! Fix your eyes on Jesus! He knew all along what we would do with the wonderful place He gave us, His gift prepared with such love and skill -- and He's getting a replacement ready: Do not let your hearts be troubled . . . In my Father's house are many rooms . . . I am going there to prepare a place for you (John 14:1-2). -- a second place for us in our resurrection, perfection, glory! If this first place was so beautiful and so equipped, what will the new one be like? Jesus hasn't forgotten you; He has you in His heart. He's been getting another place ready, and He says, "I am making everything new!" (Revelation 5:13). Fix your eyes on Jesus, and you'll stumble on wonder after wonder -- and every wonder will be true. Now take a long, hard look at Jesus in the future. Then every creature will be singing, To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever! (Revelation 5:13). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Surely you'll want to bow your knees to pray to such a One: Lord, I'm "lost in wonder, love, and praise." Lord, You have told me that You know the plans you have for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). I can hardly wait. Lord, I look at Your eternal past and I see it marred by our sin. But I look at Your eternal future -- and my eternal future with You -- and my heart leaps. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen and amen. * * * * * Thou great I AM, Fill my mind with elevation and grandeur at the thought of a Being with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, A mighty God who, amidst the lapse of worlds, and the revolutions of empires, feels no variableness, but is glorious in immortality. May I rejoice that, while men die, the Lord lives; that, while all creatures are broken reeds, empty cisterns, fading flowers, withering grass, he is the rock of ages, the fountain of living waters. --Old Puritan prayer.