WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”- JOHN 3:14-15

“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.

Growing in God’s Love

Maturity comes from intentional daily decisions to follow Christ.

Colossians 2:6-7

Yesterday, we looked at the importance of slow, steady growth. In today’s passage, Paul tells us how to accomplish that growth: Be “firmly rooted and … built up in Him and established in your faith … overflowing with gratitude.” As we’re rooted in faith, we’ll become closer and closer to Jesus each and every day—not just loving Him more but also learning to love as He does.

Growth is a deliberate choice and a transformative process. Think of a tree. It slowly gets larger, adding layers year after year. Similarly, we grow in love through gratitude, patience, and intentional acts of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. As we do, our relationships with others are impacted for the better.

For instance, when we speak the truth in love, we nurture a culture of grace and understanding (Ephesians 4:15). Honesty without love can wound, whereas love without truth can enable deception. The balance is found in Jesus, who perfectly embodies both requirements.

Take a moment to pause and reflect on your recent interactions. Were they marked by love? If not, perhaps you need to spend more time experiencing the love of your heavenly Father. Then you will be ready to allow God’s example to be your guide in every conversation, relationship, and decision.

The Path of Unbelief

Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them.

John 18:5

In the Garden of Gethsemane, as the soldiers approached to arrest the man who the Jewish leaders had decided must now die, the central figure was of course the Lord Jesus. But Judas played a key part—and teaches us a hard lesson.

Judas’s betrayal of Christ reveals a deep hypocrisy rooted in a deeper denial. His treachery serves as a warning of how a heart, though seemingly close to God, hardens as it travels down the path of unbelief—a path marked by betrayed trust and corrupt company.

The Garden of Gethsemane was not just any garden. The disciples appeared to know it well. For Jesus and the Twelve it was a place of fellowship, of relaxation, and, doubtless, of many happy memories. And yet it was in this beautiful place that Judas betrayed Christ. It’s quite staggering that he would choose a place of such intimacy in which to perform an act of such infamy, like an adulterer who breaks the marriage bond in their own marriage bed.

Picture Judas walking along the path and leading a group of soldiers and Jewish officials (John 18:3). He who was so dreadfully lost spiritually became a guide: the blind leading the blind. The path of unbelief is a lonely place that often begs for the false comfort of hopeless companionship.

The garden was a beautiful, tranquil place, but it nevertheless witnessed a heinous event. When we think of the places where we’ve been tempted to betray Christ—on a lovely vacation, in the comfort of our homes, even in places where Christ has previously met with us, blessed us, wooed us, and won us—we clearly see our heart’s perversity in our willingness to join Judas in his betrayal.

Let Judas’s example remind us that we must all be on guard. There is no room for complacency in the Christian life, no matter what you have done and seen and no matter what your standing in your church. After all, Judas had lived with Jesus for three years, had seen His miracles, and had heard His teaching. Yet still he betrayed Him. “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

How do we remain followers and avoid the tragic path taken by Judas? As the word of God implores again and again, we must beware a slowly growing hard-heartedness that causes us to drift down the path of unbelief. Instead, we need to listen to the Holy Spirit as He guides us. We need to pray that we would find a tenderness in our hearts, an openness in our minds, and a prompting in our spirits telling us, “Now, go ahead and embrace this Christ!”

The hard lesson of Judas is that only by God’s grace can we remain standing. So pray that you would never be found among the traitors: Save me, Lord, from the real temptations to doubt and deny You. Show me the wonder of Your protection and provision, and renew my assurance that You will lose none of those whom the Father has given You.