Keep Your Eyes on Jesus
With all the turmoil going on the world yesterday, today and yes it will still be going on tomorrow it is hard to keep your eye on Jesus.
The devil wants to call your attention off Christ and get you to focus on the worldly things, but we have to keep focus especially in these tumultuous times on Jesus!
The devil can’t make you fall; he can’t alter your life’s path. But what he can do, and does it so well, is to tempt us and cause so much confusion around us we lose focus.
Now if your heart isn’t focused on Jesus then the devil is not worried about that person. That person can go to church and hang out with believers all they want but as soon as the devil hears a crack in that old hard heart, he takes notice.
The one He is most concerned about is the person trying with all he has to follow
“The Way”!
The Psalmist said in Psalm 119: 36 and 37
Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain.
Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.
We have to keep our eye on Jesus and the Cross to avoid the temptations and toils of this world.
I can’t think of a better example of this in scripture than when Peter saw Jesus’ walking on water and wanted to come out to Him.
Matthew 14:22-33
22 'Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.
23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone,
24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.
26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
(As I read that part I think about the times God has spoken to me in that still small voice and I was so caught up in things around me I had to question God is that you? We have to remain focused on Him so we can recognize Him when He speaks.)
27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
(When He speaks to us He will reassure us and comfort our nerves)
28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
(Now Peter is about to do what we do when we step out in faith as God calls us out of the world.)
30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.
33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” '
Peter was all excited about being with Jesus until he let the world around him take his eyes off the thing that really mattered.
How many of us get up in the morning sit down with our Bibles and just get filled with the spirit ready to take on the world.
Then we see that wave coming at us or hear that crack because we have stepped out on faith and turn around to run back to the boat and fall.
If we only had kept our eyes on Jesus, we could have made it through the day and felt victorious at the end. But instead, we feel defeated.
The Bible is full of examples of people that suffered because they took their eyes of God.
Look at King Saul he was anointed as king of Israel by the Prophet Samuel.
1 Samuel chapter 10 Verse 1
'Then Samuel took a flask of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head and kissed him, saying, “Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance? '
But Saul just could not help himself he decided he knew more than God himself.
He decided he was king and stepped out of the word.
1 Samuel 13:8-13
8 'He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter.
9 So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering.
10 Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.
11 “What have you done?” asked Samuel. Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash,
12 I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord ’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”
(King Saul, just like Peter took his eyes off God and put them on the world around him. The world we live in can be a scary place but God has a plan we just have to focus on Him and its not so scary anymore.)
13 “You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. '
So many times we allow not only the world around us to take our focus off Jesus and His plan for our life but we let our human desires get in the way as well.
Look at King David, God made him king of a mighty nation and gave him all the riches of that position but one night he allowed his fleshly desires to come between the man of God he was and it cost him his first-born child with Bathsheba.
2 Samuel 11:2
'One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, '
David allowed his desires of the flesh to take him into sin. Kinda the way sometimes we allow the world to cause us to loose focus on our Godly Walk and we respond with emotion that is not of God.
David went on as we do sometimes after finding out Bathsheba was with child to try and manipulate the situation by his own power and in the end had Bathsheba’s husband killed by the sending him into war.
2 Samuel 11:27
After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord .'
2 Samuel 12:7-8
7 'Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.
8 I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. '
I could go on with the multitude of examples God has given us in His word to caution us to not take our eyes of Him.
The one thing they all three have in common is they took their eyes off God. Peter was walking on water, King Saul was the most powerful man in Isreal and King David as well but they got caught up in the world around them and lost focus.
I’m telling you folks we can’t allow that as a church or in our own personal Christian walk we have to keep focus on the Jesus.
Like always with our Lord, he provides hope for us when we do fall short.
He goes on in Mathew to say to Peter:
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.
33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” '
I say all of this to say always be vigilant in your walk to keep the focus on the right thing and don’t let the world sway your faith loosing focus and most of all don’t let yourself be the cause of the derailment of your walk.
Remember with Jesus there will always be hope and a way to peace.
As we leave here today, I want us to keep this verse in our minds throughout the week.
John 14:6
Jesus answered, “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”