The year was 1979 when teenage singer Amy Grant’s album “My Father’s Eyes” was released. Some years later, during the late 1980s, I remember listening to the title song while driving down the road one day. I had heard it before on several occasions, but this time the lyrics really spoke to me: “When people look inside my life I want to hear people say, she’s got her Father’s eyes. Eyes that find the good in things, when good is not around. Eyes that find the source of help when help just can’t be found. Eyes full of compassion, seeing every pain. Knowing what you’re going through and feeling it the same.”
It was at that moment the Holy Spirit began to speak to my heart and I began to pray: Lord, when I’m about my daily business, let me see how you see. I want my Father’s eyes! This experience, along with some others that summer, really did transform how I would view ministry from that time forward.
Jesus said in John 4:35: “Do you not say, there are still four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you lift up your EYES and look at the fields, for they are white for harvest!”
We have a great global challenge, and we serve Christ under His Great Commission. The only Christian discipline we can accomplish better on earth than in heaven is sharing the love of Christ with others. It has been said that the most important thing in life is ensuring that you are going to heaven. The second most important thing is taking other people with you. It’s going to be great just to make it to heaven, but it will be so much better to look around and see others you brought along.
After Jesus paid for our sins on the cross and rose from the dead, He ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God the Father. Christ sat down indicating that His redemptive work was finished. In fact, those were his very words on the cross just before he commended his spirit to the Father: “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Now that His work is finished, ours has begun. Pentecostal evangelist T.L. Osborn noted, “After purging us from our sins, making us worthy to share His life and virtue, He sat down. But it is not our time to sit down. It is our time to stand up! His redemptive work is finished. Now He has committed to us the continuation of His ministry, as His representatives. He has now delegated us to go with the good news, as His Ambassadors and to act on His behalf and in His name.”
According to Revelation 7:9, there will be newborn people from “all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb...” Between now and then we are God’s delegated witnesses to reach every person on earth with His message. Our job is to get the gospel to everyone everywhere. We may start next door, or with the person who works next to us, or perhaps even with a family member. Every breathing human needs Jesus!!
During the brutal days of communism, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was confined in the depressing Soviet labor camps where many people died. He was an “enemy of the state” because he loved freedom and he loved Jesus. Along with the other prisoners, Alexander worked in the fields. His tedious days were a cruel pattern of back-breaking work and slow starvation.
One day, the hopelessness of the situation finally overwhelmed him. Alexander felt no reason to go on living. His life seemed worthless as he slowly rotted in that unrelenting prison. Alexander reached the breaking point. Laying down his shovel, he walked slowly to a bench. He knew death was probably only minutes away. Soon a guard would order him back to work, and when he failed to respond, he would probably be bludgeoned to death with his own shovel. He had seen this happen to other fellow prisoners.
As Alexander sat waiting, he suddenly felt a presence. Lifting his eyes, he saw that an old man was now seated next to him. The old prisoner, without saying a word, drew a stick through the sand at Alexander’s feet, tracing out the sign of the cross.
Alexander stared at the cross, and his entire perspective changed. He knew he was just one broken man pitted against a powerful, dehumanizing Communist machine. But the cross gave Him hope. He knew that the hope of all humanity was represented in that cross. Through the power of the cross, all things were possible. Alexander slowly got up and went back to work.
History would soon make dramatic, sharp turns. Alexander would be miraculously freed. His writings would expose the deceptive and misleading Communist system and identify the fault lines that were about to shift and crumble. And Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his own lifetime has already gone down in history as one of freedom’s greatest advocates.
And such is the power of Jesus Christ! His cross, resurrection, and the gospel all matter! One day, the Great Commission will be the Great Completion. Everything will find its fulfillment in Jesus Christ!
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