Sunday 20 February 2011

LOOKING UNTO JESUS


READ: HEBREWS 12:1-13
Today, let us focus our attention on the importance of making the right choice. Whenever your are confronted with a situation baffling you, the next step you have to take is ask for the grace to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Every problem that confronts you will make to either look up or look backward. Don’t ever allow the devil to make you look backward and turn away from the path of righteousness. Those who look back become pillars of salt, like the wife of Lot, in Genesis 19:26. God had already delivered the whole family from destruction but one person decided to look back because she decided to perish. Many people look back because they had not really suffered before they come to Jesus. I remember the very first year of my salvation, a Pastor called me and said I was doing fine but that I should make sure did not backslide. I just smiled. If somebody has just come from fire, into an air-conditioned room, you do not need to plead with him not to go back there. You can look to the right or to the left, as you wish. In Matthew 14:25-30, we read the story of Peter when he walked on water to meet the Lord Jesus Christ. He was actually walking on water but when he looked at the storm, wind and waves, he began to sink. There are many things to look at around, particularly in our country today. You can look at the economy, increase in crime wave, and focus your attention on newspaper reports. If you focus on these troubling circumstances, you will sink. I will not sink because the word of God makes it abundantly clear that we live by faith and not by sight. In Mark 2:1-11, the Bible tells us of four men who brought a man to Jesus. When the got to where Jesus was, the way was blocked and the windows were jammed. They had a choice. They could have gone back home; they, however, refused to look back. Also, they refused to look at the situations around them because they must have gone from door to door trying to find a way in. They instead looked up and found that there was room at the top. There is always room at the top. Jesus is above whenever all doors are shut; look unto Jesus.
MEMORIZE: HEBREWS 12:2 –Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.