Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus - Unconditional Love - The thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned...

I was running with my new NIKE PLUS today (trying meet a "man challenge" that my fellows in California proposed) and at the very end of mile 1 I started getting all philosophical and what not about the song that was blasting through my shuffle.


"Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace."

My first mile had already broken me down to a physical state of a man who had fasted for a week (I haven't been running that much and am totally out of shape!!)... I wanted to do this... I want to do this! My heart is in it, but yet what does it really mean? Where is Jesus' face? Is it all just metaphorical symbolism that never finds its way applied outside of a Church?? I felt so completely fake about it all. Is it all just about singing about loving Jesus, turning your eyes and being consumed with Jesus, checking your box, and then walking out of the Church in a things as usual mindset?? Where is Jesus? How can we love Him? How can we turn our eyes upon Him???

Psalm 42
1 As the deer longs for streams of water,
so I long for you, O God.
2 I thirst for God, the living God.
When can I go and stand before him?

I honestly don't think this man was calling for His death. Maybe it is just conjecture on my part, but I believe he too longed to see the face of His God. He thirsted as if in exhaustion. Satisfaction would not come with a drop. Would He have even been able to stand before God without Christ. Was he aware of Jeremiah 31:33? Did He look forward to the Messiah?? Was He speaking within the Spirit, pointing to the promise of more? As Matt Chandler says [paraphrased] the Old Testament asks the question and the New Testament answers.

2 Corinthians 4:6
4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants [1] for Jesus' sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.


Without drawing this out too long I think the song has biblical merit. And so, I just wanted to say what came next to my mind as I ran out of breath, with a side cramp beginning to form in my stomach:

Matthew 25:31-40
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

SO THE POINT OF ALL THIS: Jesus is among us. I know He is in the hearts of those who believe, but sometimes we deceive ourselves and make the statement trite speaking flippantly or ignorantly. We are in a war down here and honestly should not rely on an emotional high and low to dictate the movements of God... These verses in Matthew have been making me uneasy since they knocked me upside the head like a ton of bricks as I ran because if you continue in Matthew...

Matthew 25:41-45
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

There are times for Spiritual discussion, but as James (2:20) said: "20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?" There HAS TO BE an element of physical to let the spiritual flourish...

Jesus is HERE! He is among us!! Why am I just realizing the full brunt of what this means now?? The thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned!!!!

I think we easily pass things off as metaphor in the Bible. I believe there is beautiful poetry, as well as things that cannot be described with physical words, such as the glory of God, the 'light' He offers, the 'saltiness' of a Church desperate for Christ, the glory of Jesus in Revelation 19... If we take the Bible TOO literal we LIMIT God (side note: this single idea reminds me of Philippians 2:12 "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" -- I honestly think we need to take THAT verse more LITERALLY)



"Heaven is, by definition, outside our experience, but all intelligible descriptions must be within our experience." -- CS Lewis, Weight of Glory




All that to say: I just do not see this as symbolism without application! We will probably not see a literal "face" in the lowly that we will recognizable -- "Hey Jesus?! Oh yes, I thought that was you!" -- But yet Jesus is saying that these people are Him. An eternal truth that cannot be expressed within a finite language. We can find Jesus in the lowly... when we care for the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned. When we do this are we loving the 'literal' face of God?? I think so.