Looking Away to Jesus

In the realm of gaining spiritual knowledge we must remember that all knowledge and wisdom comes from the Holy Spirit. That is his apart of who He is. The scripture reminds us, “Without Him we can do nothing.” Nothing includes everything. We cannot read His Word, and gain knowledge. We cannot pray. Everything we encounter in life is given by the Father. Because of this, we praise Him, as David says, “From the rising of the sun, to the setting of the same the name of the Lord shall be praised!” It’s all about the sustainer and Creator of this life we live. Our focus must truly be on Him. Anything good that comes out of our lives is because of Him. When He calls us to follow Him, He is really calling us to a life of transformation. He leaves no area of our lives untouched. The Psalmist wrote in 139 that there is no where we can go that His light doesn’t touch us and expose us. From the deepest Hell to the highest Heaven, He is always there. This is God showing us self-knowledge. Without self-knowledge there is no growth. For a person who neither realizes his fault nor knows his real condition will ever seek for the new or press forward because there is not thirst or hunger in their hearts to know God. The essential part of the Christian life is discernment not just in making decisions but to look at oneself and declare himself undependable and useless. It is then that a wholly trust in God will make us walk in the Spirit, and not in the flesh. So how do we know ourselves? We often hear preachers encourage us to look within, and examine ourselves. But too many times I think people take it the wrong way, and do not understand what examining oneself really means. A sinner examining a sinner, not too good. There are times we must examine ourselves as we pray, or do “spiritual” things of remembrance such as communion, things that become more of a ritual and shouldn’t. There is only so much we can see from a human perspective. We see what we want to see, and miss the ugliness and vile things which fill our lives. Very rarely do we compare our lives against the backdrop of God’s perfection and authoritative power and wrath. Hebrews 12:2 urges us to “look unto Jesus.” This means looking AWAY to Jesus. Before we can look to Jesus, we must first look away from what should not be looked upon (ending a sentence with at is not good!). When we look to Him we will find healing, but looking into ourselves only causes damage. Do we desire Christ to be fully manifested in our lives? Look to Jesus. Much of our failure as Christians is thinking of ourselves too much. This hinders the work of Christ. I speak of this from experience. For years I was bound up in shackles in chains of knowing my past. I had no victory in my life because I kept looking to myself. I keep analyzing myself, beating myself up for what I had done. Only when I took my eyes off myself and fully embraced the Fathers true love for me, embracing forgiveness, and embraced His truth did the shackles fall of, redemption took place and I was Redeemed from myself. This is letting Christ so fill us that we forget all that is ours. Anything otherwise would be self-deceiving. So we should pray for His perspective, so we can know our real condition. We pray for His mind to our mind that we may have His judgment. Many become lonely, depressed, and discouraged when they look to themselves too much, this is caused by self-pity. The cure is Jesus. The key is self-knowledge is to be enlightened by Jesus, coming by Him does not produce such adverse effects. In Him is freedom and rejoicing! We enter into His enlightenment by reading Psalm 36:9 “In Your light, we will see light.” This means by having received God’s revelation and being enlightened by His holy light, we are enabled to know the exact situation of the matter. This is wisdom. When we walk in the light of God, we walk wisely. It is possible to be filled with Bible knowledge and at the same time be lacking in the light of God. It just becomes knowledge severed from the Holy Spirit, and it is dead! There is no potential to pursue wisdom without the Holy Spirit, in the same way that faith without works is dead. C.I. Scofield once said that nothing was more dangerous than the divorce of truth from power. We may know lots of truth and possess great knowledge, but if these are not in the power of the Holy Spirit we will have no light by which to show us our true condition and guide our steps. Father- Grant complete and unrestrained revelation of my own self. In Jesus name. Amen.