Behold and Become

People go where they are looking. If you are driving and you look off to the side of the road for very long, you WILL drift in the direction your are looking. If you are skiing, you go where your eyes are looking. When I used to mountain bike a lot, I would go down south and ride in the Smoky Mountains. There, on the steep sides of the hills, if you took your eyes off the trail ahead, it was easy ride right off of it down the side of a mountain! You will go where you don't want to go simply by staring at it. It takes discipline to train your eyes on where you would like to go, but it REALLY matters...physically and spiritually.


Matthew 6:22-23 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!


This passage is describing the spiritual aspect of your life following your eyes. If I train my eyes on what everyone else looks at, I will go where everyone else goes, and think like everyone else thinks. But, I can pick a better thing to train my eyes on. I can train my eyes on Jesus. If I keep my gaze locked on Him, I WILL become more like Him. He is the brightest light available to me. In fact, If I look at how He acted, I am actually peering right into the heart of the Father:


II Corinthians 3:16-18 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is , there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.


This passage is describing the darkness of every other gaze compared to the unveiling...the increasing of light... that happens when I turn to gaze on Jesus. I gaze on Jesus both by coming before His throne and talking with Him, but by also studying what He did and said in His word and talking to Him about it. "Why did you forgive your murderers?" "Why were you so kind to Judas?" "Why didn't you carry any money with you?"


If I stare at Jesus I WILL go where He is...closer and closer to His perfection of beauty. If I stare at anything less, I will get closer and closer to that lower thing. Staring at other people's shortcomings actually draws me closer to those same short comings in my own life. You spiritually become what you spend your time gazing on. Period.


It is simply a matter of going where I am looking. Temporarily, it feels justified to inspect another persons flaws and figure out their lives for them...but ultimately, what I inspect...what I lock my gaze on, I will become. That is why bitterness can set in so quickly by being bitter towards someone else's choices. It gives legal access to a bitter spirit to infiltrate my own heart.


This should temper how I discipline myself to interact with Jesus' Bride. Right now the Bride is a little sloppy. She has specks and planks in her eye. This is a critical moment for the Bride. She is intentionally being assembled together in preparation for the most intense time the world has ever seen. The events of the Book of Revelation are unfolding before us...they describe a wedding...and right now the wedding party is assembling. The tuxes have been rented and arrangements have been made. The flowers are out....we are getting to the point where we need to get ready and then head to the church.


As God draws the Bride together to make her ready, we are getting a close up look at her... without any makeup! She hasn't taken a shower yet and her breath stinks. She is just waking up. Many forerunners to the preparation of the Bride have gotten bitter because they looked a little too long at this stinky princess...at what the Bride is doing and saying...rather than keeping their gaze on the One who loves the Bride and is committed to washing her with His words and helping her clean up her mouth in a process of intensity that will clean her up and unite her as one.


The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He is working over time to put darkness in our eyes to prevent Jesus' Bride from coming together. Drawing attention to Her offensive odor and appearance is the primary tool the enemy is using right now. But Jesus is not offended by Her. He sees her victorious and beautiful. Many have given up on the Church, but Jesus is coming back for the Church. He is drawing her together as one, because that is how she will stay strong through the trouble. Now is exactly the wrong time to get offended and pull back from the Body. But I guarantee offenses will come, and they are designed to get you offended...to destroy you.


Jesus remains un-offended with His Bride. He knows she cleans up really well. If we keep our gaze on Jesus, we will see Her more and more like He does, and we'll see ourselves a little better, too...just waking up, hair a mess, but eager to get ready for the wedding!





I Corinthians 12:25-27 that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.