We become what we admire…
This is why we have public services of worship—to honor the God who became one of us, suffered, died, rose again, and filled us with His own Spirit, to become like Him.
Admire that, and your heart will move you toward loving the God who loves; your life will shift toward the center of that God, who loved in every way.
Fix your gaze on a goal, and everything else soon takes second place. As long as your gaze, your thoughts, your energy is focused toward that goal, it becomes the objective toward which you will move.
The Writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews saw a congregation losing heart. They were terrified of suffering and shame, were giving up meeting together, and afraid to gather for fear of arrest and trial. So the author of that magnificent letter said to those who were looking at their awful situation, “Fix… your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of the our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.” (Hebrews 12:2)
“Don’t look at despair and lose heart. Look at the One who passed through trial to get to Victory, and in time, you will become like Him!”
We move toward what we admire…
Perhaps you remember the Trojan Horse? During a siege in which the city of Troy was attacked and could not be entered, the enemy Greeks (who were frustrated that they could not breach the walls) came up with a strategy:
They created something to admire, something the Trojans would want to have… and they put it in the battlefield, in the midst of their soldiers.
Their goal was to create something so very lovely, so very beautiful that the Trojans would want it as a prize of war.
Well, the Greeks made a magnificent, oversized replica of a horse. The Trojans captured that horse and brought it into the city as a victor’s prize.
The Trojans however, did not know that what they admired on the outside contained things within! Within that horse were Greek soldiers, who came out of the horse at night. Under cover of darkness, they opened the gates of the city and let the enemy in to plunder the city.
The irony of it all was that the Trojans defeated themselves by allowing entrance to the very thing of beauty that contained their doom.
What do you admire? You will be drawn to it, whatever it is. It is best to know that what you admire is pure within, as well as lovely without.
Fix your eyes on things you should never admit past the walls of your citadel,
and you will obtain a false victory.
Fixing your eyes on the One who overcame trial,
and you will discover that your life will shift toward Him.
© David Chotka 2020
