“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).
By John David Hicks
On August 7, 1954, in Vancouver, Canada, one of the greatest track and field events in history took place. It was called the “miracle mile.” At the time, only two men had ever run fast enough to break the four-minute mile: Roger Bannister and, a few weeks later, John Landy.
Now the two would face each other.
Bannister’s strategy was to set a good pace on the first and second laps and relax a little on the third, saving his energy for the fourth and final lap. But Landy did not cooperate with his plan. On the third lap, Landy began running faster and took a big lead. Bannister quickly changed his strategy and began gaining on Landy. By the fourth lap, Landy’s lead had been cut in half.
Landy began running faster, and Bannister tried to keep up. As the runners were heading down the home stretch, the crowd cheered them on. Unable to hear Bannister’s footsteps behind him, Landy looked back to see where he was. In doing this, he lost his concentration on the goal. Bannister then launched his attack. Landy did not see him until he lost the lead, and Bannister won the “miracle mile” by five yards.
By taking his eyes off the goal, Landy lost the race.
The same thing can happen to us in a spiritual sense. We begin well, perhaps running the race for years. Then for some reason we take our eyes off the goal, lose sight of Jesus, and may even stumble and fall or quit altogether. Hebrews warns us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2 NASB). Anyone who looks away from Jesus Christ will never finish well.
The author of our faith
Jesus is the “author”—the pioneer, pathfinder, or leader—and the “perfecter”—the finisher, the one who brings you to your goal—of your faith. He is the beginning, the perfecter, and the finisher of your faith. He perfected what it means to live by faith, living in total dependence on God. Having finished the race, He is cheering you on and ready to help you. Therefore, to finish the race you must fix your eyes on Jesus and let nothing distract you. Keep your “eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Looking to Jesus enables you to see His character. This is essential before any relationship can be established. Knowing God’s character is linked to your thoughts and ideas about Him. “The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (John 4:23). When you see the truth of God’s heart, His love, goodness, mercy, and grace, Jesus will then become the “author and perfecter” of your faith. You will have a passion for His presence.
Exhortations to “love God more” or to “run harder after Him” will never awaken love in your heart. Love comes when you see His heart—that you are loved, accepted, and forgiven, His beloved child, with nothing to prove. David wrote of this relationship, “You give them drink from your river of delights” (Psalm 36:8). In Psalm 16:11 he says, “You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” God wants you to partake of His joy and pleasure for you. Those who open up to receive will get God’s blessing and gifts.
The joy set before Him
By looking unto Jesus you are also able to understand “the joy set before him.” Because of that joy, He “endured the cross, scorning its shame…. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:2-3). Jesus’ campaign against sin cost Him the cross and it cost Him His life. Consider Him. Gaze on what He has done for you. Get your eyes off yourself and others. Look only to Jesus.
Notice Jesus’ attitude. How could He scorn the shame of the cross? Because of “the joy set before him”—knowing He was doing the Father’s will. “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11 NKJV). Jesus is victorious. This is “the joy set before him”—the joy of “bringing many sons to glory,” making you a part of His joy (Hebrews 2:10).
Verse 5 continues, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord” (NKJV). “Chastening” literally means “child-training, discipline.” God matures you through trials and trouble. The experiences of life are meant to bring you to God and to teach you faith. As a father lovingly disciplines and teaches his child, so this discipline corrects and develops you in your relationship with God.
The purpose of God’s discipline is to remove all that hinders love—love for God and for others. We all start with immature love, because maturity takes time. All of us must “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Maturity and growth begin with a desire to be obedient to His Word and a pursuit after the things of God. As we pursue after God, He reveals His heart to us. He guides our way and gives us power to live the life to which He has called us.
Unlike the discipline of human parents, God’s discipline never involves His wrath. He understands our hearts and draws a distinction between sinful rebellion and lack of maturity in the Christian life. God hates rebellion, but is long-suffering with you in your immaturity. Immaturity comes from not knowing or understanding what pleases the Father.
The Lord’s chastening takes three definite forms:
1. Corrective discipline to restore, as when God disciplined David after his sins of murder and adultery. The chastening was to restore David to a place of fellowship with God.
2. Preventive discipline to keep you from sin and failure. Paul was given a thorn in the flesh so that he would stay humble.
3. Instructive discipline that reveals God’s love and faithfulness. Through his trials, Job got a better understanding of the greatness and majesty of God.
What is the result in our lives of the Lord’s discipline? A “harvest of righteousness” comes to Christians who learn from God’s corrections—they reflect more and more the character of God. “As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness” (Psalm 17:15 NKJV). But even more, there is also a harvest of peace that comes from faithfully looking to Jesus and keeping our eyes on the goal. “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever” (Isaiah 32:17). “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).
The process of reaching the goal is as important as the end product. Your struggles, problems, and even failures are meant to bring you to God. Many of us enjoy singing the chorus, “Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus, I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.” God’s discipline is meant to help you grow, not to beat you down. As the old wag put it, your problems will make you either bitter or better. Much depends on your attitude and the strength you draw from the Lord. But the apostle tells you that this chastening gives proof of God’s love. Even for Jesus, who “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).
Enjoy the journey, even the struggle. If you can’t enjoy today, you won’t enjoy tomorrow. Through it all, Jesus will be the author and perfecter of your faith as you look to Him.
Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles
“If we would run well on the Christian pathway,” Alexander MacLaren said, “we must run light. To do that, we must constantly look to Jesus and not allow even so called ‘good things’ to hinder you as we go forward for God.”
These good things are not necessarily sin, but they may lead to spiritual weakness. They drag you down. The enemy of the best is not the worst, but the good. Whatever weakens your spirit must go. It may be a friendship or a habit, some entertainment or activity. The “good” can be a weight that slows you down in the spiritual realm. So, “throw off everything that hinders and would entangle you.”
Picture an insect entangled in a spider’s web. The sticky strands of the web grasp the bug and hold it. The more it struggles, the more hopeless is its situation. It is entangled, bound, a captive of the spider. Within hours the spider will suck the life out of the insect. What a terrifying picture of how innocent-seeming webs can entrap us and destroy our spiritual lives.
Laying aside all the extraneous matter we can get caught up in, the prophet Micah tells us the simple rules that God requires in this race of life. “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
To act justly, our integrity and honesty must be beyond question. Everyone in your town, in your shop, in your office, and in your church should be able to trust you implicitly. They should trust you in finances, trust your word, and trust your loyalty.
But in your honesty and integrity, you must also love mercy. This is not a sour kind of honesty that looks down on others who don’t live up to your standards and don’t really deserve your help and comfort. Mercy is not giving people what they deserve—none of us deserves the good things God pours out on our lives. Always remember that God has been merciful to you and does not deal with you according to what you deserve. Our temptation is to judge others by what they do and to judge ourselves by our good intentions. God always looks at the heart.
Finally, walk humbly with God in fellowship day by day. Not with arrogance, but with humility, recognizing that nothing in your life commends you to God. This is an awareness of God in all of life—a lifestyle that embodies Christ. It is a living out of a faith that goes beyond what you believe into everything you do.
What is the temptation that so easily entangles you? Covetousness? Envy? Dishonesty? Criticism? Laziness? Greed? Bitterness? Sexual lust? Lack of thankfulness? Pride? Materialism? Whatever it is, it must be faced honestly and dealt with. If not, it can turn into sin and hinder your spiritual growth. Eventually, it can even cause you to stumble or backslide. The sad thing is that you don’t see the results right away and you may become complacent. Watch for the webs that the spider weaves so you don’t get caught in them.
Have you laid aside the weights that would slow you down and wear you out? Have you chosen the best over the good? That’s the disciplined life.
Run with perseverance, finish the race
Looking to Jesus enables us to keep the goal before our eyes and run with perseverance. Perseverance saved a man whose car broke down in the extreme cold of the far Canadian north. Although he was only a mile from his home, he was in real danger of freezing to death. He had to keep moving and keep his eyes on his home, his shelter from the frigid cold. The hardest thing was to fight the temptation to just stop and fall asleep. Obstacles did not deter him. Delays did not depress him. Discouragements did not take away his hope. He just kept on going with his eyes on the goal.
Perseverance is so often lacking in the church today. It is much easier to make a start in the Christian life than it is to keep walking day by day and year by year with your eyes steadfastly on the goal. We live in a culture of instant gratification. Whatever we want, we want now. When difficulties arise, we want to take the easy way out, rather than stick with it regardless. You must force yourself to stay awake and keep moving with your eyes on Jesus Christ.
Remember that the race God has charted for you is not a sprint of 100 or 400 meters; it is a marathon. It calls for endurance and perseverance if you would cross the finish line. God has a course mapped out that is unique to you. The apostle Paul thought he knew where he was going in life, but God intervened and set him on an entirely different course. It was not an easy life, but Paul kept on going. He preached the word all over the known world and brought the gospel to many who would otherwise never have heard it. As his life was coming to a close, Paul was able to write, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
See Him seated at the right hand of the throne of God
We see Jesus, not as the lowly carpenter’s son but as the omnipotent King of kings and Lord of lords. He has completed the work of salvation. “The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:19). He has rule and authority over everything (Romans 11:36). That is why: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). “I can do everything through him who gives me strength…. And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:13, 19). “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). He has the power to keep you safe in all your struggles. However dark it seems, the light will dawn and you are going to make it.
You will behold Him and will become like Him
Your mind is not renewed by just staying away from bad things. It is renewed by looking on Jesus and meditating on the truths about God. You can’t become what you were meant to be until you “behold Him.” You will see though His eyes and have God’s perspective. Then, God will do His part and you will “become” what you were meant to be (Colossians 1:27).
Jesus said the eye is the window to the soul and light to the body. Your eye-gate opens a direct avenue to your soul. Through your eye-gate flow images that can kindle lust, stir up jealousy, and incite sinful desires.
Your spirit also has an eye-gate. What the eye is to the body, the Holy Spirit is to your spirit. The Holy Spirit is your eyes and ears spiritually. He will help you see and hear Jesus. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him—but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).
The idea that you become like what you concentrate on is illustrated in a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. A boy lived in a village where there was a mountain with a rock formation called the Great Stone Face. Someday, according to legend, a person who looked like the Great Stone Face would come to the village. He would be a great blessing. That story took hold of the boy. Over the years he would fix his eyes on the rock formation at every opportunity. He dreamed of the time the Great Stone Face would come to the village. Years passed by and he became a young man, then an old man. One day when he was wobbling down the street, someone shouted, “He has come. The Great Stone Face is here.” This old man had looked at the Great Stone Face for so long that now he bore its image.
This principle of “beholding and becoming” can transform you. When you look to or admire a person, you start to act like him. The more you focus on that person, the more you conduct yourself like him. In time, you will be like him. “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Several years ago, I read an article about the actors in Broadway plays, which sometimes run for years. The actors play their roles every day, sometimes twice a day, and may need to be rotated. There is a danger that an actor starts to become like the person in the play. He walks like him, talks like him, and thinks like him. He loses his own personal identity. Some actors have needed psychological counseling to separate out who they are from the role they played on stage.
Similarly, your “beholding Jesus” transforms you into the image of Christ. The “becoming” is only possible because we see a vision of Him in His holiness. It is not a Christian act or role we are playing; it is a life-transforming look into the reality of God that makes you partakers of the divine image (2 Peter 1:3). Paul told the Colossians to be clothed “with a brand-new nature that is continually being renewed as you learn more and more about Christ, who created this new nature within you” (Colossians 3:10 NLT). You are transformed by the knowledge of God’s person as your mind is renewed by the truth of God’s Word.
You are not transformed by guilt or by exhortations to love God more. The apostle John says you love God because He first loved you. It is this knowing that you are loved of God that transforms and motivates you. When you see that God has chosen you and adopted you into His family, making you His child, that He enjoys you and delights in you, you will be forever changed. Understanding your inheritance rights and beholding Him as your loving Father, you will have a boldness to come into His presence (Hebrews 4:16).
Coming into God’s presence changes you in three ways. First, you want more and more to please Him and to do His will. Your love for Him and joy in His service is ever increasing.
Second, you experience His love and acceptance. Confidence and trust in Him then helps you through all your faults, failures, problems, and difficulties.
Finally, by beholding Christ your mind is renewed and you become a mirror of God’s grace and mercy to others. God is transforming you into His image by the Holy Spirit as you focus on Jesus.
John Piper put it like this: “Jesus said, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst’ (John 6:35). The glory of bread is that it satisfies. The glory of living water is that it quenches thirst. We honor the spring by feeling thirsty, and getting down on our knees, and drinking with joy. Then we say, ‘Ahhhh!’ (that’s worship); and we go on our journey in the strength of the fountain (that’s service). The mountain spring is glorified most when we are most satisfied with its water.”
Tragically, many believe that duty, not delight, is the way to glorify God. But delight in God is the most basic demand and our duty as well. “Delight yourself in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4) is not a suggestion, but a command. So we are to “Serve the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2) and “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4).
David understood that “The steadfast love [of the Lord] is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). And if it is better than life, it is better than all that life offers. This means that what satisfies is not the gifts, blessing, or things from God, but God Himself as seen in Jesus.
This is why the psalmist cried out, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25-26). Nothing on earth, none of God’s good gifts of creation could satisfy the psalmist’s heart. Only God could satisfy. This is what David meant when he wrote, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing” (Psalm 16:2).
The psalms teach you by their own God-centered longings that God’s gifts of health, wealth, and prosperity do not satisfy. Only God does. It would be presumptuous not to thank Him for His gifts (“Forget not all his benefits,” Psalm 103:2); but it would be idolatry to call the gladness we get from them love for God. When David said to the Lord, “In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11 NKJV), he meant that nearness to God Himself is the only all-satisfying experience of the universe.
It is not for God’s gifts that David yearns like a heartsick lover. He hungers for the presence of God Himself. “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for you, O God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1-2). What David wants to experience is a revelation of the power and the glory of God: “O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where no water is. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory” (Psalm 63:1-2). Only God will satisfy a heart like David’s.
This is the essence of what it means to love God, to be satisfied in Him. In Him and in Him alone. Loving God may include obeying all His commands, believing all His Word, thanking Him for all His gifts; but the essence of loving God is enjoying all God is. It is this enjoyment of God that glorifies His worth most fully.
Like John Landy, you are running a miracle mile. If you look back and take your eyes off the goal, you will lose the race. Or you will be like many others who slow down, or even quit the race. With perseverance, however, you can keep your eyes on Jesus Christ and you will win the race. Then you will hear from Jesus, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matthew 25:21).
Prayer: Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. I would fix my eyes on You, Lord. I want to behold You and love You. Be Thou my vision. Amen.