Look Up!Sample

Day 3: When He is Your Source

John 17:1(NLT)  “After saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you.”

You only look up to your source. You only look up to the superior. When Jesus looked up to heaven, it was an acknowledgement of who His source is. This again brings to mind the picture of a river and its source. In order to sustain its flow, the river must consistently look to its source. Jesus looked up to heaven; where are you looking? Where you look tells a story of who your source is. Some people look to other people; some people look to their resources, but we must make up our minds to look up to heaven like Jesus did. Note that like we have pointed out, it was a consistent posture for Jesus to look up to heaven in prayer, and it is deeply instructive that even at the end of His life, He still maintained the same posture both physically and spiritually. Talk about practice making perfect, right? When you get out of bed each day where do you face first? If it has not been God first, then you have to make up your mind to change that, beginning now.

Psalm 123:2 “Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.” [KJV]

Psalm 121:1-8 (NLT) “I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth! He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps. The Lord himself watches over you! The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon at night. The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life. The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever.”

In these two psalms, the psalmist dramatizes Jesus's posture and heart in prayer. Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven and said "Father." God wants us to emulate Jesus; He wants us to lift up our eyes to Him, acknowledging Him as our source—the source of our strength, the source of our provision, the source of our security, the source of our ideas, the source of our life, the source of our victory. It is not God and something or someone or some formula. It has to be God and God alone. Jesus faced God in prayer. When we pray, we must face God and look up!

Hymn: My faith looks up to Thee, Thou Lamb of Calvary, Savior Divine; Now hear me while I pray; Take all my guilt away; Oh, let me from this day Be wholly Thine.