When we look to Jesus, He is our anchor, and we are not swayed about by the cares or snares of the world.
There is a tendency, because of culture, up bringing or just the way we have chosen to live our lives, to gravitate towards looking to other things for direction or encouragement. I pray we will always have the courage to look to Jesus only, because He never changes and is constantly good and righteous. Not other people, not our careers, not social media, not ministry and not even ourselves. Sometimes we compare ourselves with other people, maybe someone you went to school with, and you evaluate your life based on theirs and what they have achieved compared to you, maybe you compare yourself and your life and your family with that of your sibling or friends, wanting to base yours on theirs. We must have the courage to look to Jesus alone and not others, because He says He alone knows the plans He has for us, and those plans are to bless us and not harm us. Plans for well being and not disaster. To give us a hope, a future and bring us to an expected end. Jeremiah 29:11.
Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is when you do the right thing in the face of opposition, even though you might be afraid. Joseph had the courage to do the right thing. Of course, he didn’t want to go to jail, which human being would want that? But He feared and loved God more than anything. More than his status because he was running a large family business. Joseph had the courage to say how can I do this thing and sin against my God. Genesis 39:9 How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” When you choose to do what is right in the sight of God even though there is opposition from others and the world systems. That is courage.
Having courage has some costs associated with it.
Matthew 9:18-38.
While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.
Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. News of this spread through all that region.
As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
“Yes, Lord,” they replied.
Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.
While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
It is easy to begin to look to other things instead of looking to Jesus. Sometimes I catch myself thinking it would be much faster if I just did things myself instead of waiting on God and looking to Jesus.
Matthew 9:16-17
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Jesus was telling the Pharisees that you cannot put a new piece of cloth on an old garment, or you can not put new wine in old wine skin, because as the new wine continues fermenting and releasing carbon dioxide as a bi product, the old wine skin is rigid and will not stretch and expand like a new and agile wine skin and so the old wine skin will just burst. So in essence Jesus was telling the Pharisees that look here: I am doing a new thing. The old things are not going to work in this new thing. So, if you’re going to be part of this new thing that I’m doing, then you have got to be a different breed. And a different caliber. It can not be business as usual. This was unsettling to the Pharisees because Jesus was upsetting their way of life and status. He was a threat to them and the religious establishment of those days. As Jesus was still telling the Pharisees this, behold a ruler came. His name was Jairus. He was a ruler of a whole synagogue. This was a very high rank in the Jewish religious establishment. He was probably a Pharisee as well. This man of status came to Jesus openly.
John 3:1-2
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Another ruler has previously come to Jesus, but for fear of the public, he sneaked in at night not during the day when everyone was seeing Jesus to avoid ridicule from other fellow Pharisees.
Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, hiding under the cover of night, but Jairus came in broad daylight when people were seeing him.
We are talking about having courage to look to Jesus. And how Having courage has some costs associated with it.
Jairus came running to Jesus, irrespective of what people were thinking about him. He didn’t care whether or not it was trendy to look to Jesus or in style, whether it was frowned upon. He came looking to Jesus.
Your status and fear of public perception can hinder you from coming to Jesus. You must have the courage to say, that what Jesus says is true, is true. You must look to Jesus first and foremost. Not your religious affiliation, not the current world trends in business, politics or parenting. You must look to Jesus before you look to anything else. Paul did this. He looked to Jesus and consulted Jesus first.
Galatians 1:15-16
But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being.
Jairus came to Jesus, despite of what might have happened to him. He could have lost his status in the synagogue, his livelihood, but he had courage to look to Jesus. When he did this, he crossed a line that as a Pharisee he should not have crossed.
Having the courage to look to Jesus alone means that we are going to cross certain lines and some of our friends are going to be offended.
But that also means, we must really understand what Jesus is about, who He is, what His word says abut every situation. The word of God is profitable to direct. It has wisdom for every single situation. With the Word of God, we are equipped and we are going to do what Jesus says because we have learnt the sound of His voice through reading the Bible consistently and obeying what it says. John 10:27: The sheep that are My own hear My voice and listen to Me; I know them, and they follow Me.
Being led by and living out the Bible in our day to day is not flashy most of the time. It can seem mundane and unexciting. Look at Joseph all those years in captivity. He was living out the will of God but there was no pomp and glory. However, there was obedience. And that is what God is looking for. The seemingly simple small steps of reading the Bible everyday and praying consistency. Faithfully looking to Jesus and following Him, day in and day out.
Go to Jesus out of total surrender. Let Jesus be your first choice, not last resort.
Let us learn to have the courage to go to Jesus as our first choice. The world may think you are wasting time when you look to Jesus alone but everything else people put their trust in like financial investments crash. As you look around and see all these things happening with the world economy, the way the world is going crazy. Sin is being legalized. There is temptation to fear. To worry. But we must choose faith over fear. We must have the courage to look to Jesus at every level. Holy Spirit please help us. The more we get to know the God we serve, the more our faith in Him and courage grows. Trusting that He holds the future, and those that put their trust in Him will never be put to shame. Psalm 25:3: No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced, but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others.
Have the courage to look to Jesus and do not apologize for it. The thing that blesses my heart in the story we just read about Jairus is that when he came to Jesus, Jesus got up immediately. When you go to Jesus, He won’t tell you that wait for the next available customer care assistant. He won’t put you on hold.
May the Holy Spirit help us to look to Jesus only by giving us the desire and power to do so and continue reminding us to do so. One of my favorite verses is Philippians 2:13: For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
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Read more of Rachel’s contributions to AllMomDoes here.
