“What are you looking at?!” Usually someone is asked this question if they are staring or giving undue attention to something or someone in a confrontational or curious manner, but where you are looking makes a lot of difference in where you are headed! Driving a car is a primary example, since I have been told that we tend to drive where we are looking, whether that is where we want to go, or not!
Most of us know John 3:16, but these 2 verses coming before it refer to a very dire time in the story of God’s people when they sinned by complaining against God, and as a consequence snakes started invading the Israelite camp, biting people and causing them to die. The only way to avoid death was to look at a bronze snake that was placed upon a high pole. (Numbers 21:4-9) Just as gazing at the snake saved people from physical death, Christ’s death on a cross brought eternal (spiritual) life.
Elisabeth Elliot, one of my all time favorite authors/speakers, had this to say in a cassette titled Heaven. Here’s what she said about where we focus our eyes: “Look around and you’ll be dismayed. Look inside and you’ll be depressed. Look up and you will be thrilled!”
A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine makes this important point: “look and believe are synonymous terms. ‘Looking’ on the Old Testament serpent is identical with ‘believing’ on the New Testament Christ … faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.” (p. 83)
I have a daily choice, to focus my gaze on so many people and things around me, or to fix my gaze on Christ. It is an important question to ask myself, “What am I looking at?”
Father God, thank you for always providing me with a way to deal with my sin, through confession, and refocusing my gaze on Jesus. Remind me today when I start to get distracted, and need to center my attention back on you. Amen.
Consider this: What are you looking at today? Ask God to show you if you are placing your trust in someone or something other than Him, and resolve to fix your gaze on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2).