Looking Unto Jesus
By M.T. Clark — P-2041 | 08/13/2026 – Today’s Audio Podcast
Today’s Message on YouTube:
Today’s photo of a gravel farm road running straight out through green fields toward a single tall tree standing at the far end, and my canine pal Harley trotting on up ahead, all under a wide blue sky scattered with clouds, comes to us from yours truly, as I captured this serene scene on “Freedom Road” in Easton, NY, on June 8th, 2024.
Well, it’s Thursday, and I share this pathway photo as a reminder and an encouragement to get on, or to stay on, the path of Christian discipleship. Today’s photo is Freedom Road, and that single tall tree at the far end is the very “tree of life” that inspired the logo for our MT4Christ.com website.
When I used to look down this road, I would see my life’s journey running toward its end. That used to frighten me. But because of my faith in Jesus, it doesn’t anymore. I didn’t always do what was right in my life, and I had grave concerns about judgment in the afterlife, but God revealed to me that eternal life comes through faith in Christ. God saved me in 2010, and He has set my path for the rest of my life ever since. Although I used to be afraid to die, I’ve come to believe that at the end of my life God will be standing there, waiting to welcome me home to life with Him. When you walk with the Lord, you never have to be afraid.
So, get on the path of Christian discipleship and come and walk it with us. Wherever you are, get on the path, or stay on it, and keep your eyes on the One waiting at the end. Speaking of where to fix our eyes as we run,
Our series, “Win the Morning, Renew Your Mind,” continues today with the one focal point that steadies the whole race of faith.
Looking Unto Jesus
In the letter to the Hebrews, the writer encourages us with a testimony of a long list of faithful men and women who have gone before us, and then he tells us how to run our own race. Hebrews 12:1-2 (NKJV) encourages us to: “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
The race is real, endurance is required, but the secret to it lies in three words in this passage — looking unto Jesus. The whole race is run with our eyes fixed on one Person. Jesus Christ!
There is deep wisdom in that, because you tend to move toward whatever you are looking at, and you tend to become like whatever you behold. Anyone who has learned to drive knows that you steer toward what you look at. When you drive foolishly and get out of control, your instinct is to fix your eyes on the hazard you don’t want to hit. But if you don’t look away from it, you will most likely drift toward the hazard and hit it! That’s how a driver in a barren landscape will run into a telephone pole when there is plenty of open space in between where they could have gone.
It is the same with the soul. Fix your gaze on the storm, and you sink into it — Peter walked on water until he looked at the wind, and the looking is what began the sinking. Fix your gaze on your own failures, and you grow discouraged. Fix it on other people’s lives, and you grow envious or proud. The writer of Hebrews knows we are always looking at something as we run, and he tells us to look at Jesus.
This is not a vague instruction to feel spiritual. It is a specific redirection of attention.
To look unto Jesus is to take your eyes off yourself — off your performance, off your progress, off your failures — and put them on Him. He is called the author and finisher of our faith, which is a great relief, because it means that the faith you are running with is not a project you started. Our faith begins with Jesus, so we don’t have to complete the race by our own strength. Jesus authored it, and He will finish it.
So, the “looking” in our race is not anxious monitoring of our own spiritual scorecard. It is restful confidence in the One who began the work and has promised to complete it. When you are looking at Jesus, you are not looking at the scoreboard, and that is exactly where a weary runner needs to keep his eyes.
Now bring this to our morning routine, because this is where the vision for our day gets set. We wake up, and almost immediately our eyes go somewhere. For many of us, they go straight to ourselves. We look at our mental checklist of the ongoing inventory of what is wrong or the quiet audit of whether we measured up yesterday. Although this seems like a wise strategy to fend off problems and to improve our performance, a gaze fixed on the self first produces either pride or despair, never peace.
The morning is the moment to fix our eyes on Jesus instead. Before you take stock of yourself, look unto Him — the One who has already run His race, already endured the cross, and has already sat down because the work was finished. A day that begins with looking at Christ is a day that is set on a foundation of assurance and peace. Jesus’s example shows us the way.
The writer of Hebrews even tells us how Jesus Himself endured, and it is the same principle turned all the way up. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross and despised its shame. Even the Lord ran His race by looking — by fixing His eyes on a joy beyond the suffering, the joy of redeeming us and returning to His Father. If that is how Jesus Himself endured the hardest thing ever endured, then surely that is how we are meant to run our smaller races: not by staring at the difficulty, but by looking past it to Him and to what lies on the other side.
So much of a discouraged morning is simply a matter of a misplaced vision. Our troubles haven’t changed, but they can seem larger than life because they are the things we woke up staring at. The remedy is not to pretend the troubles are small. The remedy is to lift our eyes to Someone higher — to look unto Jesus in the heavenlies — and to let Him and His example become the thing we fix our eyes on as we run today’s race.
So, before your gaze settles on yourself or your circumstances each morning, lift it to Christ. Run today’s race looking unto Him, the author and finisher of your faith. You will find that the race goes better when your eyes are on the One who has already won it. Every step we take toward the Lord is a step in the right direction.
Keep on walking and talking with God.
— M.T.
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“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”
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