It's All About Him

My Thursday night Bible study group has been studying Galatians for the past several months. Although I’d read Galatians and memorized some of its verses, I’d never studied it in its entirety before. It’s been a more difficult study than I had expected, but it’s been full of new insights into the Christian faith. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the gospel, what it is and how it makes a practical difference in our everyday lives as Christians. I always thought the gospel summed up in Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins. I accept that and I’m a Christian. No more need for the gospel, except to share it with others.

How wrong I was! The gospel impacts my life every day. It reminds me that I have been set free from the power of sin over me. I can live a victorious life because of Christ in me. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been struggling with a frenzied feeling that I don’t know enough about living the Christian life, that I have so far to go to be like Jesus. I was striving and straining in my own power. In discouragement I lamented the fact that I just didn’t know how to do all I felt called to do as a Christian. A dear friend made a passing comment that we just need to look to Jesus – “fixing our eyes on [Him], the author and perfector of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). So simple, and yet it completely freed me from my downward spiral of self-reflection and recrimination.

When we look to Jesus as our all-in-all, we see life differently. We are no longer the center of our universe – Christ is. And that’s the message of the gospel. Our lives are no longer about ourselves, not even about our struggles to becoming better Christians. “God is working in you to help you want to do and be able to do what pleases him” (Phil. 2:13). It’s all about Jesus. He gives us the desire to know Him and He enables us to love both Him and others. When our eyes are focused on Him, “the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”

This morning, another wonderful friend posted the excerpt below. It’s the perfect summary of all I’ve been learning recently. I stand amazed by God yet again. He always provides encouragement and reinforcement of new ideas I’ve been awakened to. He truly walks this road of life with us and loves us as His beloved.

Looking unto Jesus
It is ever the Holy Spirit's work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan's work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ. He insinuates, "Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you have not the joy of his children; you have such a wavering hold of Jesus." All these are thoughts about self, and we shall never find comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self: he tells us that we are nothing, but that "Christ is all in all." Remember, therefore, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee-it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee-it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be the instrument-it is Christ's blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to thy hand with which thou art grasping Christ, as to Christ; look not to thy hope, but to Jesus, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of thy faith. We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by "looking unto Jesus." Keep thine eye simply on him; let his death, his sufferings, his merits, his glories, his intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look to him; when thou liest down at night look to him. Oh! let not thy hopes or fears come between thee and Jesus; follow hard after him, and he will never fail thee.
~Spurgeon