LOOKING TO JESUS

 

God did not intend that this life would be easy for His children. Instead, we suffer, seemingly more than others (Hebrews 12:5:11; 1 Peter 4:12-17; Matthew 5:3-12; 2 Corinthians 4:7-18). Therefore, our hopes and longings must be invested in the promise of eternal life. In contrast, the OT saints could only embrace this hope from afar:

•    These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13–16)

We please our Lord when we place our hope and faith in Him and the heavenly city He has prepared for us.  Besides, for our own welfare we need to hold this hope securely in our bosom. In the Hebrew Scriptures, there had been no clear promise of eternal life. Therefore, their saints had largely been “held captive by fear of death” (Hebrews 2:15). Consequently, King Solomon, with all his wisdom, was unable to grasp it. He had everything imaginable but hated life:

•    Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:15–17)

Consequently, we need not hate life and its suffering. Why not? Because their purpose has been clearly revealed to us in its glory. Even suffering and dying serve as preparation for eternity:

•    So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16–18)

How then are we to look at the unseen?

•    Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1–2)

We are to look at the heavenly joy set before us but also towards the example of our Savior:

•    Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:3)

Life is difficult, but our Lord provides the resources to endure until we come to our eternal resting place.