When I Look to Jesus
When Jesus came to earth, his teachings and parables were full of mirrors from the past. The time of the Israelites and the 400 years of silence had made people wonder how we would tell the Messiah had actually arrived. Thankfully, Jesus became the true fulfillment of the law, offering a new way of living. One of which was the way we viewed salvation. Take, for example, these words Jesus shared with the teacher Nicodemus in the book of John:
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may now have eternal life.”
If you remember the story from the Old Testament, Jesus is referring to a time when venomous snakes were attacking the Israelites, and God had Moses attach a bronze snake to a pole for the people. By looking at this snake, they would be healed from their poison and be saved from death. Hundreds of years later, Jesus makes the comparison that by looking to him, we would be saved from death and be given eternal life.
I love the way that this verse comes directly before the most well known Bible verse, John 3:16, yet both of them end the same way: that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. Even though we deserve much worse, all we must do is look to Jesus for salvation. It is through him and him alone that we have freedom.
There’s much more I could write about this, but instead, I thought I’d end by sharing a few lyrics from a song by Phil Wickham titled, Look to Jesus. This worship song reminds us that no matter who we are and what we are going through, we can find new life, hope, and love by looking to Jesus:
Death is like an empty grave
Fear looks like a giant slain
Trials look like gifts of grace
When I look to Jesus
Failures bow to victory
Sin has lost its hold on me
Endless love is all I see
When I look to Jesus
*References from John 3:14–15 and Numbers 21:4–9
