Looking to Jesus: by Andrew Murray

 

Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame.
—Hebrews 12:1-2

In running a race, a person’s eyes and heart are always set upon the goal and the prize. In Hebrews 12, the Christian is called to keep his eyes focused on Jesus, who endured the cross, as the one object of imitation and desire. In our whole lives, we are always to be animated by His Spirit as He bore the cross. This was the way that led to the throne and the glory of God. This is the “new and living way” (Hebrews 10:20) that He opened for us through the veil of the flesh. As we study and realize that God so highly exalted Him because He bore the cross (See Philippians 2:8-9), we will walk in His footsteps, bear­ing our own crosses as He did, with our flesh condemned and crucified.

The powerlessness of the church is greatly owing to the fact that this cross‑bearing mind of Jesus is so little preached and practiced. Most Christians think that as long as they do not commit obvious sins, they are at liberty to possess and enjoy as much of the world as they please. There is so little insight into the deep truth that the world, and the flesh that loves the world, is “enmity against God” (Romans 8:7). Because of this, many Christians seek and pray for conformity to the image of Jesus for years, and yet they fail so entirely. They do not know, they do not seek with the whole heart to know, what it is to die to self and the world.

It was for “the joy that was set before him,” the joy of pleasing and glorifying the Father, the joy of loving and winning souls for Himself, that Christ endured the cross. We have a great need for a new crusade with the proclamation, “This is the will of God: just as Christ, through His endurance of the cross, found His highest happiness and received from the Father the fullness of the Spirit to pour down on His people, so it is only in our fellowship of the cross that we can really become ‘conformed to the image of His Son’ (Romans 8:29).” As believers awake to this blessed truth, and as they always look to the crucified Jesus while running the race, they will receive power to win for Christ the souls He purchased on the cross.