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"If my step has turned from the way, or my heart walked after (followed) my eyes...." (Job 31:7)
This is a most disturbing phrase, "....walked after my eyes...." Yet how many times this occurs in a human being.
Job was speaking with the Lord Jesus, "The Word of God," and attempting to make some sense out of all that was happening to him. Job was saying something like, "If I have done all of this, then what is happening to me is my "just deserts."
Maybe this is a reason, "The Word of God," tells us, "Keep my commands and live, and my law as the apple of your eye." My heart will follow whatever I behold, whether with the eyes or the "eyes" of the mind. There is no exception to this. Whatever, even whomever, I look at long enough can "capture" my heart in some sense, many times it is not good. I do not have to give you examples, I am sure.
Enter, "....looking unto Jesus...." Maybe some icons of the Middle Ages were not all bad. Maybe by having religious paintings, sculptures, etc., before the eyes, kept many from even worse behavior than that of which we read. Maybe there can be some "good" in a "Saint Christopher" statue. Now, come on; do you really want to think that about me? At any rate, most throughout Salvation History could not read. Paintings, sculptures, stain-glassed windows helped tell the Gospel story. Perhaps they even helped with a sort of "focus." But I digress.
Try this antidote to "wondering eyes" from Deuteronomy 11: "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates, so that...." That should work.
Father, in Jesus' Name, I acknowledge that my heart has too often been led by my eyes. Remind me continually to keep my eyes on You. Amen.
"If my step has turned from the way, or my heart walked after (followed) my eyes...." (Job 31:7)
This is a most disturbing phrase, "....walked after my eyes...." Yet how many times this occurs in a human being.
Job was speaking with the Lord Jesus, "The Word of God," and attempting to make some sense out of all that was happening to him. Job was saying something like, "If I have done all of this, then what is happening to me is my "just deserts."
Maybe this is a reason, "The Word of God," tells us, "Keep my commands and live, and my law as the apple of your eye." My heart will follow whatever I behold, whether with the eyes or the "eyes" of the mind. There is no exception to this. Whatever, even whomever, I look at long enough can "capture" my heart in some sense, many times it is not good. I do not have to give you examples, I am sure.
Enter, "....looking unto Jesus...." Maybe some icons of the Middle Ages were not all bad. Maybe by having religious paintings, sculptures, etc., before the eyes, kept many from even worse behavior than that of which we read. Maybe there can be some "good" in a "Saint Christopher" statue. Now, come on; do you really want to think that about me? At any rate, most throughout Salvation History could not read. Paintings, sculptures, stain-glassed windows helped tell the Gospel story. Perhaps they even helped with a sort of "focus." But I digress.
Try this antidote to "wondering eyes" from Deuteronomy 11: "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates, so that...." That should work.
Father, in Jesus' Name, I acknowledge that my heart has too often been led by my eyes. Remind me continually to keep my eyes on You. Amen.
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
Hebrews 12:2
Hebrews 12:2
