What Are You Looking At?

by Vance Havner

Looking unto Jesus. Hebrews 12:2

We hear a lot these days about “looking up,” “keeping your chin up,” and other exhortations, by which this poor world tries to whistle its way past the graveyard. But the value of the uplook depends on what you are looking at. Looking up avails little if it is only a forced optimism staring at the blue sky.

The Christian looks and lives even as the snake-bitten Israelites were healed by a look at the brazen serpent. “Look unto me, and be ye saved,” is God’s invitation (Isa. 45:22). Then we live the Christian life, “off-looking unto Jesus” (Heb. 9:28). But the value of faith lies in its object, and our look of faith has meaning only if “we see Jesus.”

Do Not Be Afraid

by A.B. Simpson

Quit you like men—1 Corinthians 16:13

Be brave. Cowards always get hurt. Brave men generally come out unharmed. Jeremiah, was a hero. He shrank from nothing. He faced his king and countrymen with dauntless bravery, and the result was he suffered no harm but came through the siege of Jerusalem without a hair being injured. Zedekiah, the cowardly king, was always afraid to obey God and be true, and the result was he at last met the most cruel punishment ever inflicted on a human being.

The men and women who from the beginning stand true to their convictions have the fewest tests. When God gives to you a hard trial, if you can stand the strain He may not repeat it. When Abraham offered up his son Isaac on Mount Moriah, it was a final testing for the rest of his life. Do not let Satan see that you are afraid of him, for he will pursue to the death if he thinks that he has a chance of getting you.

by A.B. Simpson