Laura Marvin's List: Looking Unto Jesus

• "Looking  unto Jesus". More correctly that would be stated  "looking off unto Jesus". We are coming to that  again in a moment, but there is a ground of confidence.  We can have assurance about this matter of attaining. One  illustration of this is given in this letter to the  Hebrews. It is as though the writer saw a ship out on the  sea, being grievously battered and thrown about by the  storm, in the grip of the wind and the current, and then,  if it were possible, one brave representative taking the  anchor on a long chain and dropping it within the quiet,  peaceful harbour, leaving it there for the ship to pull  on, in the sure knowledge that it will come in because it  has a vital link with something already there. That is  the picture the Apostle presents of this matter. We have  this confidence, this hope, "as an anchor of the  soul, a hope both sure and stedfast and entering into  that which is within the veil" (Heb. 6:19).
• This matter of  looking, therefore, is very important. It depends  entirely upon where our eyes are and where they are kept.  In the Word of God there are many directions in which  people are warned against looking, because of the hazards  to the whole progress and course of things toward the  goal; the hazards of a wrong look, of a false direction,  of the eyes getting off the mark.
• There is  the one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back,  and is therefore not fit for the kingdom (Luke 9:62).  That is the backward look.
• "Look not around". That is, do not allow  circumstances so to lay hold of your vision and to fasten  upon your outlook that they control your movement.  "Let thine eyes look right on" - not around.
• "Not  looking each of you to his own things". That is the  wrong kind of looking, the wrong direction.
• much is dependent upon our looking, and  the Apostle was right when, after writing this long  letter so fully bringing into view the great object -  partnership with Christ - and urging to go on, he summed  it all up in this fragment: "Looking off unto Jesus  the author and perfecter of our faith". Looking away  from the things behind, looking away from those around,  looking off from the self-matters altogether, looking  beyond the things that are so near, obsessing us now;  looking off from ourselves unto Jesus.
• He  looked for the city" (Heb. 11:10); 'They looked for  a country' (Heb. 11:14). How much was bound up with the  look! How they had to battle with this matter of where  the eyes wanted to rest, a too early satisfaction of the  eyes, a wrong satisfaction of the eyes, a substitute for  what God was after. But the Lord was constantly drawing  their eyes away from lesser things, causing them to look  and look, and that look led them on.
• "

  Let thine eyes look right  on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Make  level the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be  established (ordered aright)".
• "Our  light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us  more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;  while we look not at the things which are seen, but at  the things which are not seen: for the things which are  seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are  eternal" (2 Cor. 4:17,18). The eternal is kept in  view, and life is adjusted in every way to God's end.
• "Weigh  carefully the paths of thy feet and order them aright.  Turn not to the right hand nor to the left".  "Let thine eyes look right on".
• Remember your Lord, offered the  kingdoms of this world and the glory thereof: He refused  them and looked right on. Yes, He was offered an easy way  out, a way out of the Cross; but no, He let His eyes look  right on, He set His face as a flint. His eyes looked  right on, and here it is recorded, as we read in the next  part of the verse from Hebrews: "Looking off unto  Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the  joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising  shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne  of God". He set His eyes on God's end. May we have  grace to do the same.

9 more annotations...