Believing: Directing the Heart's attention to Jesus. Today's Renewed Day by Day Tozer devotional.

"Believing: Directing the Heart's attention to Jesus.
And looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! John 1:36

The Hebrew epistle instructs us to run life's race "looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith,"
for faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God!
Believing, actually is directing the heart's attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind to "behold the Lamb of God," and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives. Distractions may hinder, but once the heart is committed to Him, after each brief excursion away from Him the attention will return again and rest upon Him like a wandering bird coming back to its window.
I would emphasize this one committal, this one great volitional act which establishes the heart's intention to gaze forever upon Jesus. God takes this intention for our choice and makes what allowances He must for the thousand distractions which beset us in this evil world.
Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.
When we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us, for it is written that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth. The sweet language of experience is, "Thou God seest me." When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on earth!"

I especially loved that phrase, "Faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God!"

And while we're on the topic of feelings...

Hmmm... I think maybe the Lord is trying to tell me something... 3 or 4 times in 3 or 4 days, I've been reminded about not going by feelings. I love the Rutherford and Macduff quotes! Here's the Streams in the Desert devotional for 10th March.

"The just shall live by faith." (Heb. 10:38).

Seemings and feelings are often substituted for faith. Pleasurable emotions and deep satisfying experiences are part of the Christian life, but they are not all of it. Trials, conflicts, battles and testings lie along the way, and are not to be counted as misfortunes, but rather as part of our necessary discipline.

In all these varying experiences we are to reckon on Christ as dwelling in the heart, regardless of our feelings if we are walking obediently before Him. Here is where many get into trouble; they try to walk by feeling rather than faith.

One of the saints tells us that it seemed as though God had withdrawn Himself from her. His mercy seemed clean gone. For six weeks her desolation lasted, and then the Heavenly Lover seemed to say:
"Catherine, thou hast looked for Me without in the world of sense, but all the while I have been within waiting for thee; meet Me in the inner chamber of thy spirit, for I am there."

Distinguish between the fact of God's presence, and the emotion of the fact. It is a happy thing when the soul seems desolate and deserted, if our faith can say, "I see Thee not. I feel Thee not, but Thou art certainly and graciously here, where I am as I am." Say it again and again: "Thou art here: though the bush does not seem to burn with fire, it does burn. I will take the shoes from off my feet, for the place on which I stand is holy ground." --London Christian

"Believe God's word and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your Rock is Christ, and it is not the Rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea." --Samuel Rutherford

"Keep your eye steadily fixed on the infinite grandeur of Christ's finished work and righteousness. Look to Jesus and believe, look to Jesus and live!" Nay, more; as you look to him, hoist your sails and buffet manfully the sea of life. Do not remain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in inactive repose, or suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and toss on one another like vessels idly moored in a harbor. The religious life is not a brooding over emotions, grazing the keel of faith in the shallows, or dragging the anchor of hope through the oozy tide mud as if afraid of encountering the healthy breeze. Away! With your canvas spread to the gale, trusting in Him, who rules the raging of the waters. The safety of the tinted bird is to be on the wing. If its haunt be near the ground--if it fly low--it exposes itself to the fowler's net or snare. If we remain grovelling on the low ground of feeling and emotion, we shall find ourselves entangled in a thousand meshes of doubt and despondency, temptation and unbelief. "But surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of THAT WHICH HATH A WING" (marginal reading Prov. 1:17). Hope thou in God. --J. R. Macduff

When I cannot enjoy the faith of assurance, I live by the faith of adherence. Matthew Henry

A little old poem by Corrie Ten Boom

A poem or hymn attributed to Martin Luther

I came across this today and thought it was rather good.
I'd read the first verse before, but not the other two.


“Feelings come and feelings go,
And feelings are deceiving;
My warrant is the Word of God--
Naught else is worth believing.

Though all my heart should feel condemned
For want of some sweet token,
There is One greater than my heart
Whose Word cannot be broken.

I'll trust in God's unchanging Word
Till soul and body sever,
For, though all things shall pass away,
HIS WORD SHALL STAND FOREVER!”


― Martin Luther