Looking to be Saved

Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the Earth:  for I am God, and there is none else.  – Isaiah 45:22

By far, my favorite conversations involve individual beliefs.  I have talked to atheists, Muslims (well, a Muslim), and even people of the Jewish faith. Then, of course, within Christianity there are hundreds of subsets:  Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Catholics, Pentecostals . . . and I could go on, but you get the point.  What I have found is that we all consistently look at things that encourage our own belief systems.

For example, one time I made an atheist fairly angry.  He was trying to convince me that God does not exist and was presenting his position quite well.  However, many of the arguments he was using I had recognized from reading the book “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins (Unless you want to wrestle with some serious doubt, stay far away from this book).  I called him on it and told him he was just as religious as I was.  I told him that he read things that encouraged his atheism from other atheists just like I read things that encouraged my faith from fellow believers.  I pointed out that Atheism has its own leaders that people read about, learn from and follow just as every other belief system does.  He didn’t like that very much.

Here is my point: if you want to not believe the God of our Holy Bible, then you can find plenty of literature that says, “The Bible is only a book, it was written by men for men to control others.”  Whatever you want to believe, there are things you can look at as well as other people who believe likewise that will encourage those beliefs if you will continually and regularly look to them.  If you want to believe in humanism, which places your faith in yourself and other people, there are more than enough books to keep you busy until you draw your last breath.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), according to the Lord, Jesus Christ, all roads do NOT lead to the same place.  Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  I realize that this is a seriously narrow minded statement.  But, personally, I’m glad the directions to Heaven are simple and clear.  Look to Jesus, and be saved.

Today, evaluate what you look at and ask yourself, “Why do I look at this?”  What music do you gravitate toward?  What television shows do you watch?  What books do you read?  What websites do you frequent?  Then, ask a couple of simple questions:  Does this encourage my faith in God?  Does this help me look unto Him?  If we ultimately want to be saved, we must consistently look unto Him.

Right believing will always involve right looking.  I found out the hard way that I can’t just say I believe in God, go to church and be bored to near death, listen to whatever I want, watch whatever I want, and do whatever I want and call that Christianity.  I have never been so miserable in my life as when I have tried to serve God and still maintain the pleasures of this world.  Had I been looking to Jesus, He would have flat out told me in the first place, “You can’t serve two masters.”  (Matthew 6:24)

Every single day, I now look to Jesus Christ.  I read about Him, I listen to songs that uplift His Holy name, I converse with Him, and I make my best effort to live in strict obedience to Him.  It is my way of constantly calling on Him.  The Bible says, “All who call on the Name of the Lord shall be saved!” (Romans 10:13)  Doing this stuff helps me stay focused on Him and live the life He has called me to live.  I don’t want to make it sound as if it is my own effort that saves me, it doesn’t.  But the command to look at Him does take conscious, deliberate effort on the part of every believer.  We have an enemy working overtime whose only job is to get every person, especially Christians, to take their eyes off of God and look to anything, and I mean anything, other than Jesus.

Look to Him.  Every day, somehow and in some way bring Him to mind.  Isaiah says it as a command, not an option.  The mighty men and women of God that I know consistently look unto Him.  The ones I know who sway back and forth between faith and doubt look unto Him rarely, if they ever look to Him at all.

Look unto Him, and be saved!

Later

Adam