Look to Jesus: There Is No Comfort or Assurance from Looking Within

We so often need to fix our focus, Amen? It is uber easy to look outward on our problems, or look within on our inabilities and our weaknesses, becoming frozen in our ineptness. Fixating on the problem rather than on the Problem Solver will get us nowhere fast (except maybe to the hospital with an ulcer). Self will never bring the believer assurance or lasting confidence that we are totally loved and fully accepted in the Beloved. Flesh will forever come up short. Indeed, flesh has been weighed on the scales and been found wanting. And the Holy Spirit casts our eyes off of self and places them rightly on to the Master. Further, Peter adds in 1 Peter 5:7 (NIV): “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Indeed, we are to fix our eyes on Jesus as it is He Who is the Author and Perfecter of our faith. 

This may come as a surprise to some, but we are not the center of the universe – God is. And when we place ourselves there, we begin a quest for God’s rightful position – which gets us nowhere fast. We desire for things to go as we plan – our will over God’s good and pleasing and perfect one. We see so unclearly as in a reflection of a poor mirror and we know only in part. But God sees perfectly, fully and completely. The Creator knows what is best for the created – always – and He has our best interest at heart in all He allows or prevents – no matter how much we may kick and scream. When we are at the center of our lives and not the Lord Jesus, it will never fare well in the end. Remember our Lord’s Words to us in John 14:6-7 (NIV): Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 

John also tells us in 1 John 2:6 (NIV) that Jesus set the example for us to follow when he states: “Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” Christ died for the disease of man’s soul – sin and all of its ill effects – He took it away nailing it to the cross and empowered those who would believe in Him to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Unfortunately, even as believers we can still choose to wallow in the wickedness for which Christ died to set us free from. When we go our own way and despise and esteem Him not, we cause ourselves much harm – missing the blessing He died to give us. We must not forget our Savior, our Rock, our Fortress. It is on Him we place our trust – not ourselves.