Listening to the old-favored hymn, TURN YOUR EYES UPON JESUS with lyrics: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
I began to ask the Holy Spirit these questions: How do I turn my ‘eyes’ upon Jesus? Jesus in body form is not here; He died and went back to heaven!
How do I look full in His wonderful face? I see the drawn and painted pictures by people of what they thought Jesus looked like when He walked the earth. But they are all different. So how do I SEE His face? I see His face in how His chosen earthly witnesses wrote about Him – after being with Him, working with Him, walking with Him. Yet one day we will fully see Him face to face, hopefully as our Redeemer of Grace who has saved us from God’s coming wrath and damning verdict of total separation from God and His glorious Kingdom.
The things of earth, what are they? All that is physical in nature/seen/experienced by our senses, human relationships, substance/matter, success, means of income, worldly activity/invention/threat/chaos.
Growing dim? How? By comparison; but to what? Comparing and judging all things by the LIGHT of God’s Word, with all His Promises for the future of those who love Him. Understanding His purpose for my life and the way He designed me.
“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11
Why should the things of earth grow dim? Aren’t those things of earth important to have and be concerned about? Didn’t God create things of the earth for us to enjoy and use and to sustain our physical life with? Yes! But have we come to worship created things over our Creator?
Grow Dim: Those things in life on earth, little by little, should no longer ‘get to me’ in a ‘ruining’ way of who I am in Christ Jesus when compared to who God says I am in Christ Jesus, and what I have with Him by faith in His Son. “Now we see but a DIM reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12
His Light: God’s written Word to us for the gospel’s rejuvenation; for hope, contentment, godliness and His peace that surpasses all my understanding of those things that pertain to the world and are of the earth.
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” John 3:19-21
His Glory: God IS love and truth! God is all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, all present; in full control of His plan to redeem us through faith in Christ, the Savior of the world, and for eternal life with our Father God. His glory includes His final judgment and restoration of all created things – so that the prayer and prophecy of His Son will be fulfilled: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done – on earth – as it is in Heaven….” Matthew 6:9-10
His Grace: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23
Grace has been defined as: God giving us what we do NOT deserve. As Adam’s children physically born into the world, we come with a strong sin nature because of Adam’s rebellion to God’s command to him in the Garden. God put this curse on all people born physically, but when we come to faith in Christ that ‘curse’ is lifted and we are no longer condemned to hell.
John 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
This old hymn now has a new meaning to me: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
OH WHAT A SAVIOR I HAVE! WHAT GLORY DIVINE! I LONG TO SEE HIM FACE TO FACE AND TO KISS THE HAND THAT REACHED BACK TO ME!