Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

So I was sitting in service today listening to yet another message about how Christians are just like the world in many ways and how we need to follow Jesus' commands and that the law is still applicable and we need to follow it and how if we love Him we will obey His commands, etc., and all those things are true. But, I just think that it leads to so much guilt when they are isolated and emphasized without teaching about the all-surpassing beauty and satisfaction found in Christ. I read God is the Gospel by John Piper last week and I loved so many of his points. I wonder if people are failing in their Christian walk, not because they are neglecting the law, but because they don't know Him. I mean, they know Him, but they don't REALLY know Him in all His glory and all His beauty. During service today as I was a contemplating all this, an old chorus we used to sing at church popped into my head:

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 wonder if the reason we struggle with sin so much is because we don't 'look full' into the wonderful face of Jesus. I know in my own life that as I know Christ more the things of earth actually do 'grow strangely dim'.

So maybe the message shouldn't be on how we need to follow the law and obey His commands and stop sinning. Maybe we should have more messages about the beauty, glory, and grace of Jesus. Maybe we need to hear more messages about who HE is rather than about what we should be or shouldn't be doing. Just a thought.

"[W]e bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them". Acts 14:15b

Evil

"Evil is when we believe that God will not satisfy us and therefore pursue happiness in transient things. That’s the essence of sin." ~Jon Bloom, (Jesus and Buddha on Happiness)