Keeping our eyes on Jesus (part 3)

So what does it mean :

"keeping our eyes on Jesus " mean, in relation to our everyday problems in life, for the Christian? 
(i plan to ask other seasoned Christians that)

I don't know.

All I know is, it has something to do with unconditional love..

Receiving it & displaying it.

Christians talk funny concerning love.

We say things like

"Love can fix an anything "

Or

" love never fails "

We don't understand that, love BY ITSELF"  is Law.

Get it? That's why a summary of the "law"  is to love God & others. 
Now the Bible's standard there is "perfection" and I have yet to meet anyone who's met that standard.

The law is there to prove to us, we can't keep it.

"keeping an eye on something "means having a constant awareness of, whatever your keeping an eye on.

When it comes to Jesus, it may or may not always concern salvation.

But it does concern sanity and clarity of mind when living and discerning in a sinful world.

Only God's Word reveals who He is and in turn, reminds us who we are.

The only "love that never fails" is love, without condition.

We "keep our eyes on Jesus" by reading His Word and seeing an overwhelming abundance of God's love, to us!

Knowing this helps us love others.

"keeping our eyes on Jesus" means having a daily awareness of God's promises as we live out our everyday lives.

For the Christian, marriage is a good example of how, the love we know of, begins as law, which comes by way of a vow before (u guessed it) 
God.

Love begins as law but, keeping our eyes on Jesus, and His perfect love to us, turns our love into something greater and when that occurs, our problems pale in comparison.

That takes alot of time.

The Bible is not contradictory when it says

"love never fails"  (first)  then later says "love without deeds is dead"

Unfortunately, we've reversed those two.

Some think, it's what we do that creates a "love that never fails.

Sorry Charlie,

I don't love my wife because of what she does. 
I love her because she loves me no matter what. 
What she does is prove of what she is, 
and what she is, is prove of what she has.  Jesus.

I'm not even saved because God loves me. 
He can love me all He wants, love doesn't save me. 
I'm saved because of His grace /mercy in offering His Son Jesus to die in my place. Salvation thru His Blood & Resurrection.
What God did proves (to us) Who He is.

God is still God, whether He did that or not, whether I believe  that or not, whether I keep my eyes on Him or not.

The fate of this world is settled, absolute. 
The fate known as our problems is settled, there here to stay and will only get worse. Absolute.

Even Keeping our eyes on Jesus will not change that. 
If that troubles someone,I'm not sorry. 
The cost of God's love was too high, the rewards, to vast and the joy it brings is to intense.

God's promises has sustained countless believers in the past and will do the same for countless believers yet to be born and my failings is in my struggling to post these thoughts as I know I much too often forget this.

I don't pretend to know all the answers, but i know I had to post these thoughts before I get into the final four chapters of God's revealed Word.

I'm quite certain these chapters will cement forever, the thoughts expressed in this post.

Tryreadnit!

Keeping our eyes on Jesus (part 2)

As I said, one avalanche of lies demands a greater avalanche of truth.

Maybe I should say waterfall,when concerning truth, instead of avalanche. Waterfalls never quit.

Cultural confusion gets to us in a back to back, avalanche type fashion. There intense but there tend to be breaks between attacks.

God's truths, when seen, or shown, by God's Spirit, is more like a waterfall of truth, of hope, of joy that the earthly mind can not comprehend, but it's there.

Yet as we live day to day in this sin cursed world, that Joy comes out "funny"  (kinda like this post :-)

This will take some time

(and right there is the #1 reason this is not popular, truth demands time to be fully seen )

but the Bible's central theme of love, grace mercy, wrath (over sin)  compassion, patience is summed up in one word, and that word is

Jesus!

And this message rains down on the reader daily in countless ways. 
You can't turn a page without seeing it.

Then, this truth addresses and answers all of life's confusion and puts it all in its place, as the pieces fit together. 
Problem is, when God's picture is (close to) completed, it looks nothing like we once thought.

When anyone has that much truth raining down on them, non stop, talk to me again about those problems you have.

Problems will never go away. They'll only get worse.

Try telling that to church goers not in God's Word. 
No fun, I can assure you.

Becoming aware is a most scary thing.
Truth is not so much a thought or idea as it is actually, knowing where to look.

Some might say, they are aware. 
Whose to say? 
Most times, when people think they got it all, they find themselves in a situation that reminds them, they don't.

If at these times, if they read God's Word for comfort, not in a way to fix there problems, because truth isn't about fixing a broken world's problems.

Truth is something that's done, on cross, problems are something that keeps us from seeing truth, God's Word is something that sustains us till we receive our ultimate reward (no, not heaven. The reward is when we see Jesus, heaven pales even to that) 

That last thought I'm still working on asking, do I truly believe that?

You'll know when you turn that corner though, the corner that shows, God's Truth will forever outweigh your problems.

Many church goers say they  know that yet continue to add a "but"  to the tail end of God's truth.

Christians know when they turn that corner when they know , God's Word is absolute! 
I can't explain How they'll know, they just will.

This indeed, is a tough sell because, when I looked up, on Google, verses pertaining to us keeping our eyes on Jesus, wonderful verses, like 
2 Corinthians 4:18 or Hebrews 12:2,

the problem was, the verses were  presented as not only pertaining to Jesus, but "our"  surroundings as well.

No!  Stop doing that. 
There's a generation that has no clue as to how to read the Bible.

Even any verse that hints it's about you, isn't about you simply because without Jesus, there's no verse, no grace, no mercy.

So where does anyone get off making it about them?

The minute you take a truth about Jesus (only) and mix in some application to fix whatever problem your having,

you turn that truth into a law,

and a law, that doesn't even work, at that?!

Any strength we get from God's Word is not in its application. .

It's in the knowledge and sense of knowing how much another loves us, be it our kids, our spouses but only demonstrated perfectly in God.

I've been married over 30 years and what's cemented our marriage is discovering how much we love one another. 
It's scary.

When this kind of love comes packaged in the "unconditional"

as it is in God's Word,

It has a repelling nature to it, because we feel we don't deserve it.

And when you realize, you DON'T deserve it, yet receive it anyway, graciously, things in ur mind begin to pop.

(my way of saying, you get it)

And the more you get it, the more it humbles you.

In marriage, this is not eternal but in Bible, it is forever.

This kind of love is "funny"

For the unbeliever, the more their loved (unconditionally) , the more they hate it. The hate is matched with the love, till they leave it. People will always find something to unconditionally love and they will be happy but they are no fun to talk to concerning anything serious. To maintain there state of happiness, they need to not only ignore God's truth but even truth which is defined clearly by  by nature as well as society.

For believers who don't know how to hear God's voice as they read, this (unconditional) love creates a desire to earn it, as a way to quiet them knowing they don't deserve it.

Then there are those who are thanking and praising God, they were given enough life, to get a taste, a glimpse of the fruit of unconditional love. 
The fraction of a fraction of that love is all I can handle.

I will conclude this, next post. 

Keeping our eyes on Jesus (part 1)

What does that mean?

I unknowingly began to answer my own questions in an earlier post titled "still revelation."

Truth is connected, be it in a nation, a family, a marriage or in this case, our walk with God and the connection is authority.

Who has it?

Ultimately, God in every case.

For some days now I've been concentrating on some verses of scripture that has me thinking, I'm close, very close to a clearer understanding of what
"keeping our eyes on Jesus" really means.

The scripture is in Matthew , when it talks about our eye being the lamp of the body, in Mt 6.
I've been diving into that because I'm thinking some answers to many questions are in a passage like this and before I adopt a belief in my mind from what a preacher might say to that I intend to look at it closer, myself.

This is important  when you consider the reasons christians struggle reading thru God's Word.

Not understanding what it means to keep our eyes on Jesus could mean, what light we do have, or that which we think we know, could be darkness. 

So I'm thinking, we as 21rst century American Christians better get that "keeping our eyes on Jesus"  thing right.

Bottom line is, if anyone in this modern society who calls themselves Christian, if they are not daily in the Bible themselves, in context, front to back,

since no other way exists to truly know what "keeping our eyes on Jesus" means,  you may be easily Deceived.

I can just hear people yelling,

"I don't need to read the Bible to be a Christian! "

If I had a dime every time I heard that.

I'm not talking to that one whose living under a bridge in any inner city or to the one camped out in the Amazon Forrest.

My thoughts and passion and prayers go to the ones who just said or thought..

" you don't have to read the Bible to be a Christian! "

If you want to hear what God is saying, you do need God's complete Word.

I'm telling ya, in a society that has an infinite, endless, constant 24/7, never takes a break, onslaught avalanche of

Ideas , beliefs, slogans, shortcuts campaigns, isms

that attach themselves to our   "feelings "

If you think after all that, God's Word in context won't sift thru that.. Two words :

Your wrong.

Please, no one remind me it's God's Spirit alone that reveals His Word. Trust me, I'm not so far gone not to know that.

The intent of this blog, one of several, is too encourage the  church goer to ask themselves, why aren't they reading it thru as any other book.

The only way to combat an avalanche of cultural confusion is with a greater avalanche of God's truth and central message.

When Christians, who struggle, are reminded that Jesus is the message and a heavenly kingdom  awaits us

they say "oh, that?  Yeah, but how will that help me now?"

Can God's promises for heavenly rewards help us now?

Yes!

When I saw these verses in Matthew, at church, as we go thru this vrs by verse,  I couldn't help but ask myself..

If these verses encourage us to keep our eyes on Jesus, what does that mean?

Everyone says they are keeping there eyes on Jesus but life's problem seem to dominate.

I struggle with the same.

What do people "think" will happen if they begin to read the Bible, in context , or listening to it on audio. I can share  here, what happens.

That's another reason why I started this blog