Click below to listen to the Audio-book of "Where To Look"
read by Steve Warnock.
downloadThe Scriptures speak much of not going or looking back. While searching the ministry of Christ in the Gospels, I notice the alternative. We must look forward, or more specifically, look up. All that is before us in the future should be a manifestation of that which is true in the Spirit.
Just looking forward with our natural understanding can be deceitful. Take for example Brother Lot in Genesis 13:10, 11 – “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan; that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.”
Lot looked up, but got no higher than the best of what could be seen in the natural. The part of the Land that he chose was the best to be seen but was in and among the worst inhabitants of the land.
In Genesis 18:2, it is said that Abraham lifted up his eyes, but the thing he saw was the Lord, represented by three men. He saw past the exterior into the Spirit. This trend of turning the eyes from the earthly to the heavenly was to continue, for in his deepest crisis of having to offer up the son that he loved, he utilized this principle. He looked beyond the outward and lifted up his eyes and saw a ram caught in a thicket (Genesis 22:13). This was the answer to his dilemma.
This son who was saved from death by his father’s obedience also utilized this principle. While meditating in a field, wondering if a bride would even be brought for him, he simply lifted up his eyes (Genesis 24:63) and there she was. Rebekah, in order to find and know her husband, also lifted up her eyes (verse 64) and they beheld each other for the first time and would continue to behold each other until death parted them. Isaac’s son Jacob in Genesis 31 was caught in a hard place and the answer came in not viewing the circumstances but in seeing from above.
David also found it so. When in trouble, he would lift up his eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh his help. His help was not in seeing hills but as the next verse states: “My help cometh from the Lord” (Psalms 121:1, 2). He says in Psalms 123: “Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.”
Jesus would meet the greatest crisis by simply looking past the natural into the heavenly realm. When in the realm of the natural there were five thousand to be fed, He did not seek a natural means to overcome the problem. He could have taken an offering as donations of food, but instead He took what was before Him in the natural realm and looked toward the spiritual realm: “And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them, and the two fishes divided he among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled” (Mark 6:41, 42).
At Lazarus’ death, everyone was resigned to the natural circumstances. Jesus looked beyond them. He stated spiritual facts to those gathered; and to bring them about, it is stated: “Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people who stand by I said it [in the natural], that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:41-43).
After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the church continued to not look back or to examine the natural, but to look in Christ. Of Stephen, who was in a most dire circumstance, it is said, “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God” (Acts 7:54, 55).
There is the “Jerusalem which now is” that corresponds to the earthly realm and our natural viewpoint, and there is “Jerusalem which is above,” speaking of what is true in Christ (Galatians 4:25, 26). In the book of Revelation, we see the two contrasted. The earthly Jerusalem is full of confusion and the abomination of desolation, but the New Jerusalem is at peace with no chance of being desecrated. Our confusion comes (I speak from experience) when we have our hearts set on the earthly and tangible.
There are many who will fall because they cannot discern the heavenly from the earthly. Their affections are set on the things below and all decisions are based on what they see or even envision to see in the earth. Automatics are just that. The day you have to start forcing things and people is the day your heart is separated from things above. The Christ we see and are seated with in heavenly places needs not the arm of flesh. What can we add to His stature? “The flesh profiteth nothing” (John 6:63).
Our hidden ambitions to make a name for ourselves at the expense of the Body of Christ will bring it all down. Our tapes, our books, and our vision may all be Christ-centered, but our way is not hidden from the Lord and God who trieth the hearts and sees where no man can see – where we have deceived ourselves that what we do is Christ. Yet God is not mocked, we will reap what we sow. If we sow to the flesh under the banner of Jesus, but so that we will be seen and known, we will of the flesh reap corruption (Galatians 6:8). We may have true mortar with which to build, but if it is weakened by our secret hopes and inordinate affections, then the walls, though built with good brick, will succumb to the storms that assail it. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:1-2). If our minds are consumed with even the automatic manifestation of things above, then our affection is on things on the earth (for that is where it will surely be manifested). Glory to God for the things He will do on the earth, but let us glory rather in what is real now and forever in Christ, in whom our affection is set.
A final note in relation to the end time. We have many who are not lifting up their eyes, but are looking in heaven and the earth to see when the end should come. Look at what the Scriptures say: “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Luke 21:25, 26).
Did you notice where the people were looking whose hearts were failing them? They were looking at what God was doing in the natural. Oh yes, it was God doing it, but we are not told to look in the natural (even if God is doing it). Then what is our admonition when these things happen? “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up [not at these things], and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (verse 28). The difference between those in perplexity, fear, and whose hearts were failing, compared to the other group, is where their eyes were fixed. ***
