Keep Your Eyes on Jesus
Well, praise Jesus today guys. I just wanted to make a short message
about how we as disciples of Jesus need to keep our eyes on Him. We know the
story about Peter, what happened when he was in that boat and they saw Jesus walking
on the water. They thought He was a ghost. But after they realized that He was
their Messiah, Peter says, “well, if
you are the Messiah, command me to step out on the water and walk to you.” And
Peter starts to walk to Jesus. But then as he looks at the waves, he becomes
fearful and he sinks and he says, “Lord, save me.” This is a perfect analogy of
what happens to us when we're walking well with Jesus, everything's going good,
and then a storm of life happens and then we look at the storm or we look at
people around us. And as soon as that happens and our eyes are off of Jesus, we
start to sink into the world, sink into despair, sink into fear. We lose
confidence that we can walk with the Lord because now the situation in front of
us looks too scary.
And a lot of these waves or bumps in life would have easily been
overcome if we didn't worry about that little bump, that little whoop in the
road, that little wave coming in. We wouldn't have been concerned about it at
all if we were not comparing ourselves to others or thinking about the world or
worried about the news or worried about our image in the world. If we were
really focused on Jesus and what He says, for example, seeking first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then everything else will be added to
you. If we were about our Father in Heaven's business, then we would still be
walking on water as Peter would have still been walking on water if he didn't
take his eyes off of the Lord.
Now this sounds very juvenile, very basic. It's one of the basic
principles of walking in our faith, keeping our eyes on Jesus. But sometimes
the very basic things have to be mastered. If we don't master the very basic
things, then we can't accomplish anything else. Some of the very basic things
of the faith are love, loving the Lord your God with all your heart, I mean
true love for Jesus Christ, true love for your neighbor, having genuine faith
and keeping your eyes on the Lord, keeping yourself unstained from the world. If
we can master these very basic things with Jesus, we will be doing good.
But as soon as you are not mastering these things, you're going to let
demons quickly come into your life. And when these demons are coming into your
life, you're quickly going to allow sin into your life, bitterness, hatred,
envy, jealousy, fear, doubting, and you're going to start sinking so fast,
you're not going to be able to help anyone because you're going to be the one
reaching up your hand just hoping someone pulls you up.
So I want to encourage you to walk the straight and narrow path with
Jesus by keeping your eyes on Him. You know, people understand how to keep
their eyes on things of the world. If they want to keep their focus on making
money, they know how to do that. If they want to keep their focus on health,
they know how to do that. Or winning a physical race, they know how to do that.
But it seems like when it comes to keeping our eyes on Jesus, that becomes too
aloof of an idea for people to understand.
So if this concept of keeping your eyes on Jesus seems too hard to
understand, where do you start? I encourage you to start by reading the Gospels
and praying directly to Jesus. Say, “Lord Jesus, please open the ears of my
heart, open the eyes of my eyes, that I can see you and hear you and give me the
ability to walk in righteousness with you, that nothing may hinder me from
going forward in my faith.” So read the Gospels. Pay attention to what Jesus
said in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. If you pay attention to what Jesus said
and then you apply it to your life, you're going to be going the right
direction. And if you ask Jesus for His guidance, the guidance of His Holy
Spirit, He's going to start teaching you right away.
Some people have asked me, well, how if I'm in sin and haven't received
the Holy Spirit, how can I even pray? God won't hear me until I've received the
Holy Spirit. That's not true. If you as a sinner right now want to repent, God
hears the prayers of those with a contrite heart, with those of a heart wanting
to live holy, and He will start purifying your heart. He will start the
renewing process on you today. He will start purging you of sin and evil, but
you have to choose to go with Him each step. You have to choose to really
repent of things that you know are wrong. If you want to start hearing God
clearly, listen to your conscience. God gave every single one of us a
conscience. We know the difference between right or wrong. And listen to your
conscience because your conscience is your spiritual ear to hear. Your
conscience isn't the Holy Spirit, but if you listen with your conscience when
you pray, then Jesus can start to speak to you. He can speak to you while
you're going throughout your day, while you're dreaming at night, and He can
convict you of what's really true, and He can point you the right direction.
If you're not listening to your conscience and you're doing things that
you know are evil and trying to get away with everything, then you're going the
wrong direction anyway. So go the right direction with Jesus, Listen to your
conscience, Read the gospel. Pay attention to what Jesus said and be quick to
have feet to run to obey, to do the things that Jesus said, and you surely will
be going in the right direction. May the grace of Jesus be with you.
