How did things go using this new practice of meditation on scripture in your time

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1 Gazing Upon Christ Review In the last session, we looked at the practice of meditation on scripture. Like the session before that on spoken praise and worship, meditation on scripture is a tool we can use in our time with God to seek Christ dwelling in our hearts as in Ephesians 3. "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." How did things go using this new practice of meditation on scripture in your time with God this week? Introduction This session dives into a new tool which is gazing upon Christ. It s slightly similar to the previous session of meditation on scripture. The difference is that the object of our meditation is Christ himself. What does it mean to gaze upon Christ? How do we do that? Do we physically see him with our real eyes or is it a different type of seeing? What does the Bible say about this? The rest of this session will explore these questions. This session may be a little more challenging than the previous ones. If you haven t gone through the previous sessions and started putting their respective tools into practice in your time with God, it may be best to go through the early

2 sessions before continuing on here. Beauty and Gazing Beautiful things will naturally attract our gaze. A beautiful scene of nature like a sunset, or a beautiful piece of art attracts our gaze. It is common to see people just staring at a sunset, not saying a word. What s going on in their hearts? They re moved by the beauty of what they see and are almost mesmerized by it. The beauty draws their gaze. What are some examples of beautiful things you have found that have attracted your gaze? What do you recall of the feelings in your heart when you gazed at them? Gazing is looking intently on something for a considerable time without taking your eyes off of it. When you gaze, you are unhurried and lose track of time. Your entire self is focused on the object of your gaze. There is no other thought going through your head. It seems like you re aware of nothing else in the world. Gazing upon the Beautiful Christ What about gazing upon Jesus? Hebrews encourages us to fix our eyes upon Him. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. - Hebrews 12:1, 2 Psalm 27 talks about gazing upon His beauty.

3 One thing I ask from the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. - Psalm 27:4 Christ himself is beautiful to behold. He is inherently beautiful and what he has done on the cross exemplifies his beauty. Have you ever considered Christ as beautiful? Have you ever had an extended time of gazing upon his beauty? When we begin a time alone with Jesus, are we immediately aware of his beauty? Perhaps we re thinking of the day ahead or the day just past if it s evening. How we can purposefully direct our thoughts to think of Him alone? Not just considering what he has done, but gazing upon the beauty of the person of Christ. Exercising discipline over the distracting thoughts that come to mind so we can go back to Christ alone. This may seem difficult when we start, but after some time, we can come to a place where it isn t difficult - it s beautiful and we can t imagine anything else more desirable than to gaze upon his beauty. His beauty will naturally attract the gaze of our hearts if we re aware of his beauty. But are we always aware of his beauty? Shortly, we ll look at some tools to help us become more aware of Christ s beauty. What we see when we gaze upon Christ So when we do gaze upon the face of Christ, what do you think we ll see? That question sounds like it s treading on holy ground, so to speak, and it is. But the question appears to be answered in the Bible so perhaps we can tread carefully and humbly.

4 For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God s glory displayed in the face of Christ. - 2 Corinthians 4:6 This is a little complicated, so let s break it down into steps. 1. The light of God shines in our hearts. 2. Light helps us to see or know something. 3. The thing that we know (have heart knowledge of) is the glory of God. 4. We see this glory in the face of Christ. It may still seem a little complicated. If so, take some time to reflect over the steps above until you can see things more clearly. So to answer our earlier question, we see God s glory displayed in the face of Christ. God has given us spiritual eyes to see, so when we gaze upon Christ we see God s glory. Glory is mentioned a lot in the Bible. We all know what glory means or do we? Well it s the thing God has, or is... well, it s this brilliant shininess around him. These or related thoughts might go through our heads. Maybe you have read a lot of the Bible and have a great theological definition. What do you think about when you hear the term God s glory? As a start we can think of glory as a manifestation of God s attributes in a way that we can perceive. We may never know God s glory fully until we see Christ face to face in heaven. But from the verse above, until we see Christ face to face, we can know God s glory partially through our earthly view of the face of Christ. What happens to us as we gaze upon Christ As we take in God s glory, guess what happens? Many different things can happen, but let s look at one mentioned earlier in 2 Corinthians.

5 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. - 2 Corinthians 3:18 This is another complicated one so let s break it down again. 1. We contemplate the Lord s glory 2. As we do, we are transformed into his image By gazing upon Christ, we become more like Him by a work of God s Spirit. How good is that! Many people want to become like Christ. If we try to do this only on our own strength we can become discouraged and maybe lose hope. But as we spend time with God and gaze upon Christ, the Spirit does this amazing work that makes us more like Jesus. Distractions Before we really get started, remember what we learned in the Meditating on Scripture session about distractions? Distractions will definitely happen here too, so let s be prepared with a response. When distractions come, we don t need to be hard on ourselves thinking that we have failed in any way. Distracting thoughts are not something we have chosen to have. However, when we are consciously aware that they have crept in to take our eyes off of the face of Christ, we can choose to turn our gaze back to Christ. This pattern of gazing, distractions, gazing, etc may continue on throughout our whole time with the Lord. Our goal is that the gazing times get longer and the distraction times get shorter. The main thing is a continued resolve to always turn our gaze back to Jesus. Gazing upon Christ Preparation With all of the background we have gone through on gazing upon Christ, let s now put this into practice. We don t have hard and fast rules that we need to follow for this and each person s experience will be different. You can find your own way of setting the eyes of your heart on Jesus that works for the way God made you. Still, you can try what follows as a starting point.

6 Initiate by directing your eyes to Jesus There is an old song that goes like this: 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 See what happens when we make the first move? When we initiate to fix our eyes upon Jesus and look intently at his face? Everyday things grow dim. Our cares, fears, to-do list, and hurts all fade away. Why? Because the brilliance of his glory diminishes them. What s left when the everyday things have faded? According to the song, it is his glory and grace. As we gaze upon his face, it seems God s glory and grace are all that exist. We may start our time with God with the things of earth bright and loud before us and a very dim awareness of Christ. As we determine to set our eyes on the face of Christ, we move along the spectrum to the place where his glory is so brilliant that we re unaware of anything else. It helps to take as much time as we can. If we haven t done this before, even after less than a minute, we might feel like we can t keep our minds on Christ alone. In spite of that, we can pick a time of say five minutes where regardless of what happens we will attempt to keep our minds set on Him. As we incorporate that kind of time with the Lord in our overall dedicated time with him, we ll gradually develop the discipline of meditating on Him so that it becomes more natural. Gazing upon Christ Examples If you re in a group, let the facilitator read through the following slowly as the rest of you begin to fix your eyes on Christ. Set the eyes of your heart on Jesus. Consider how he left heaven behind and took on our nature. Think of his humility in leaving his heavenly glory behind and taking on the limitations of human form. Let you eyes settle on this humble

7 servant who is yet God. Steady your view onto Jesus and his veiled glory on this earth. The creator of the universe steps down into His creation knowing He will not be welcomed. Yet He steps down. Ponder the love that is behind this stepping down. Consider the infinite selflessness of Christ who has stepped into His own creation like this. Keep the eyes of your heart directed on this Jesus. Let s just pause now for a couple of minutes to continue gazing upon Him. Now let s look at other examples of entering into that place of gazing upon the face of Christ. If you re in a group, the facilitator can read through very slowly while the rest of the group listens and directs the gaze of their hearts upon Christ. There are pause moments when nothing will be read out and the group can keep the focus of the eyes of their heart on Christ. Example: Here I am in the presence of Christ I am present before the One who created the universe The One who created me is present here with me now I am here with the holy, righteous Son of God. Pause for 1-2 minutes

8 Jesus Christ is perfect. He is morally perfect. His perfection radiates from the throne of heaven where he is seated at the right hand of the Father. Pause for 1-2 minutes Jesus Christ is beautiful to behold. He is beautiful in his Spirit. His beauty is seen through how he sacrificially dealt with the ugliness of the cross. Pause for 1-2 minutes Jesus, your glory is brilliant. Jesus, your holiness is overwhelming. Jesus, your love brings me to tears.

9 Pause for 1-2 minutes On Your Own: Developing the Practice Take some time now to spend time alone gazing upon Christ. If you re in a group, separate out to find your own quiet spot to be alone with Jesus. Fix your eyes upon Jesus and wait until He is all you see and other things have faded into the background. If you are in a group, when time is up, you can reconvene and discuss with others your experience with gazing upon Christ. Tomorrow, when you spend some dedicated time with God, try the new practice of gazing upon Christ. Find a place that s quiet where you feel you can keep your thoughts focussed on Jesus. You can spend at least minutes there (or as long as you like) keeping your heart and mind focussed on Christ himself. As you gaze on Christ more and more in your times alone with God, you may find that you naturally start to do this at other times throughout your day as well.