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In modern Western society we are all but brainwashed by the 'rat race'. We are urged to compete at every level so that we are always ahead of our rivals.
Advertisers make their money by urging us to make sure that our whites are whiter than our neighbour's, our children are healthier and brighter, our cars bigger and newer, and our personal appeal enhanced by being rid of B.O. by using the right soap, stopping bad breath and using the right toothpaste, by looking slim and attractive and not like those slobs we call our neighbours. In the rat race the rule is, keep checking that you are ahead of your neighbour.Run your life with your eyes on other people: that's where you focus in the rat race.
The Christian race is different. This tells us where our eyes are to be focused:
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1 and 2
Eyes fixed on Jesus - that is to whom Christians must look! To focus on other Christians (no matter how good), on the church, on religion and religious experience, on good deeds and living the good life, is to be looking the wrong way. Fix your mind, focus your eyes on Jesus. That's where to look. On Jesus, who not only talked and preached about the perfect life: He embodied it.
He not only talked of good - he did it. He is the first and only human being to crash through the sin barrier, to defeat the human plague, to break the ego disease and defeat it. He is the pioneer who opened up the way to God which we had closed, even at the cost of the torture and horror of the cross. That's where we look: to Jesus.
This is from Paul, writing to the Colossians in sheer wonder about God:
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth Colossians 1:13-16
Prayer focus:
In my deskpad I have a scrap of paper, in my mother's handwriting. She died at 98 and 4 years before she'd written from a hymn, the lines "These eyes new faith receiving, from Jesus shall not move,
For he who dies believing, dies safely through his love."
Now read Revelations 7:9-17
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