Looking Through the Eyes of Jesus
Greetings and good morning, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years, the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you. This morning we seek to understand how to look through the eyes of Jesus.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
Looking through the Eyes of Jesus
““Jesus said,‘‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’’””John, Chapter 13, Verse 34
Brothers and sisters, in today’’s broadcast, we seek to further stimulate the divine desire of the brothers and sisters to view reality through the eyes of Jesus. We can do this because we know that Jesus lives within us, and therefore we can see as he sees. We know that in addition to the many physical afflictions that we are carrying on our back, we are also carrying the heavy fallout of economic disaster And our backs are straining under the heavy load as we continue our struggle to climb this hill of material difficulty. As such times, it is helpful to view reality through the eyes of Jesus. to obtain that spiritual energy that has the power to take us through all the travails of the material ups and downs, and ultimately to present us before the judges on high, blameless, for He quietly whispers to our souls: " Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take my yoke upon you, learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."
To help us to grasp this viewpoint, we shall again resort to the use of material analogies. The first analogy refers to the person who is so detracted by the weight of the material load that he is saddled with that he does not even think of seeing anything other than seeing the load removed from his back. The second analogy refers to the person who has become so overwhelmed by the heavy material load that he has abandoned the spiritual struggle altogether. He has turned his back upon his moral and spiritual obligations. And the final analogy refers to the person under the burden of the heavy load who looks but does not see anything. Looking through the eyes of Jesus will correct all of these visual problems.
There is the story of the young man who wanted to achieve great things. He wanted to become very successful in his endeavors but had become saddled with heavy family responsibilities at an early age, a time when most of his peers were making plans for their futures. This young person being a dutiful son devoted all of this time to carrying out his moral responsibilities. He willingly shouldered them but became weighted down so much so that despair set in, and he grew despondent. As he looked to the future, all he could see was endless responsibilities, with no letup in sight. He struggled on bravely, daring not to let any of his responsibilities lapse. But his life was devoid of hope or joy; he felt that he could trust no one other than his self.
There is the story of the middle age man who having arrived at the age where he began to look over his past life, and to view the prospects of his future life made a radical decision. He decided to go for the gusto. He felt that it was now his turn, and he would get the most out of life from this point on. He found no joy or satisfaction from his past relationships, and felt that they had to go. He broke off all his relationships, and then he broke away from himself, his ideals. He felt that there was no point in being loyal to these ideals when they could never be realized. He wanted to see some satisfaction, and he wanted to see it now. So he removed the moral burdens off of his soul and launched forward in the fast lane, and he was moving pretty fast such that he did not see the curve of life and subsequently ran off of the road.
Finally, there is the story of the person who is struggling with his moral responsibilities and other duties of life. This person is dutiful, and would like to see the ultimate meanings of his struggle, but he continually sees them through his own eyes, like a small child on his first Easter egg hunt. The eggs are all over the hunting ground, but lack of acute vision fails to reveal them to him, and so his search is fruitless. Those who are older and more experienced have no difficulty finding the eggs, and their baskets are running over with the collected eggs while his basket remains empty.
The cure to all of these difficulties is to see with the eyes of Jesus. The divine Son, Jesus, has traversed all of the stages of human existence from the lowest to the highest, and he knows from personal experience all about carrying heavy loads and the tremendous strains these loads place on the backs of humans. He knows of all the temptations to abandon such loads, or the temptation to forget the whole human moral struggle, and he also knows about inadequate spiritual insight. He has gone through all of these stages of human growth and yielded not to the temptations but forged on ahead until he developed spiritual insight that yielded joy in the face of sorrow, hope in the face of despair, peace in the midst of turmoil, and trust in the goodness of God when evil and sin raged all about him. He mastered the technique of faith that allowed him to move through life enjoying the landscape of truth, beauty, and goodness, and most of all to experience the thrill of the love of the heavenly Father as he made his way through this life of toil and strife.
How do we learn to see with the eyes of Jesus? How do we transforms moral values and meanings into spiritual values and meanings? How do we acquire the mind of Jesus, his point of view? How can we unleash our souls from its material moorings and allow it to rise to the domain of the spirit, where there is freedom and joy? How can we experience this tranquility and hope? How can we overcome the doubting of the mind that says trust no one and emerge into that land where we absolutely trust the heavenly Father? How can we summon the faith that will effectively powerize our desires? Ask and you shall receive; knock and the door shall be opened.
Let us ask and knock. We pray:
Lord Jesus,
We are your mortal children struggling down here below. Each day seems to bring about one more disappointing thing to deal with. Each day the mortal lease gets tighter and tighter as our physical bodies struggle to keep going amidst pain and suffering. We feel that we are caught between a rock and a hard place, between the pain of sorrow and the pain of physical affliction. And we feel sometimes there is nothing that we can do to alleviate this dire strait. We know, Lord Jesus, that it is your will that we live this life--with its ups and down--to the best of our ability. We know that this life has something very valuable within it, our evolving souls. So that being the case, Lord Jesus, we ask for the faith to operate on this level of spiritual values and meanings, and then, Lord Jesus, we ask for the moral strength and the spiritual power to extract the divine values and meanings from our existence.
We know that the only cure for moral slavery and despair is spiritual living. Teach us to live the spiritual life even while we live the mortal life down here in the valley of travail. We pray for the wherewithal to master our negative emotions in response to all of this pain and suffering. We pray, Lord Jesus, that you will sustain us, for there are times when we feel we just can’’t go on anymore. Help us to live one day at a time. Renew our minds and our spirits, Lord Jesus, and teach us how to overcome doubt with faith. Teach us to be patient in times of crisis. Our experience tells us that no matter how long or intense the crises, we always emerge from them, even as the sun emerges from the storm clouds. We pray for growth. Finally Lord Jesus, show us mercy and forgiveness when necessary. Show us how to view this life through the eyes of your mighty Spirit of Truth. Teach us how to do the Father’’s will, Lord Jesus, Amen.
This concludes today's message on looking through the eyes of Jesus. We hope you find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
Your Kingdom Come; Thy Will Be Done!
Looking Through the Eyes of Jesus
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
