Daily devotional, Dec 15, 2023 Picture Picture
"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you,because he trusts in you." Isaiah 26:3
Christmas is the season of more picture taking than ever. If this generation is accustomed to taking at least 10 photos a day, the Yuletide season meant taking multiples of that with groups upon groups of family and friends. And while “looking away” poses remain glam; fun, celebratory photographs look best when everyone looks at the cam.
In the bible, there was one instance when Moses made something that the Israelites needed to look at — a Bronze Serpent God has commanded him to make. Looking at the Bronze Serpent was the way to heal people from the poisonous snake bite that took the lives of many grumbling Israelites.
"The people came to Moses and said, 'We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.' So Moses prayed for the people.The Lord said to Moses, 'Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.'"
(Numbers 21:7-8)
As simple as it is, but anyone who focused their gaze on the serpent — no matter how badly they were suffering — survived the venomous bite of the fiery snakes. Biblical scholars correlate this story to us present day people, who just need to look up to Jesus and be saved.
"Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other."
Isaiah 45:22
No amount of failure and mistake could exempt us from the loving mercy of our Lord. No matter what our transgressions may be, Jesus Christ purchased eternal life for us, and we only need to focus our gaze on Him. St. Paul’s letter to the Romans 8:38-39 aptly captures this truth:
"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39
So how do we focus our gaze on Jesus? Simple, we remove our focus on ourselves and look up to Him and what He has done for us. As most psychiatrists say the most miserable people, are those who kept thinking about themselves.
Think of Jesus Christ, how much He loves you and how much He has done for you in the past and you will realize that your self centeredness is the real root cause of your depression. Reduce the “I”, the “my”, the “me” and the “mine” and other possessive pronouns in your vocabulary and talk about Jesus instead.
Another way to focus one’s gaze on Jesus is to remove our obsessive attention towards our problems and challenges. Let us refrain from constantly harping about all the difficulties we are facing, and forgetting that we have a God who takes care of everything. Yes we may experience tragedies and life-changing personal crises, but let us remember that these are occurrences that the Lord has allowed to happen in our lives. Everyone experiences a major problem at least once in their lives.
Let us not forget that our God is mighty, He can do anything He pleases. And so, when He allows the testing of our faith through problems, we should try our best to endure and focus on Him instead. Let us take a cue from the Apostle Paul who firmly held on to his faith, acknowledging that he goes on only by the strength of our Lord and Savior:
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
2 Corinthians 12:9-11
This season, let us try to wean ourselves from our endless focus on our cameras (especially on the selfie cam!). We should instead fix our gaze on the real reason for the season. Moving forward, we should prompt ourselves to continue looking up to Jesus so that we can stay spiritually strong, and have the courage to quickly stand up whenever we fail.
Thank you for reading through our devotional today. I invite you to ponder on Numbers 21:4-10 to dig deeper on today’s topic.
Reflection Question: Are your eyes focused on Jesus or your personal circumstances?
Conversation with the Lord: Heavenly Father, thank you for reminding me to focus my eyes on you and you alone. There are times that I get distracted with my worries and issues, but keeping my eyes on you reminds me that you have me, you have covered my sins, and that you are bigger than any of my problems. I love you Lord, Amen.