Fix My Gaze

I have been slowly going through John Piper's God is the Gospel these days and am enjoying it. It is soul awakening to be reminded of the fact that our ultimate joy in heaven is not in the absence of sickness and death or being able to enjoy the presence of our loved ones etc., but in the supreme pleasure of enjoying the presence of God, the Giver. So often I sadly find myself clinging on to the former.

Having gone through surgery three months ago, and then having been sick again for the past 6 weeks, I am definitely finding it difficult at times to not hope for health in this life. But God always speaks to me in His timing and during life's momentary trials. Piper speaks from 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 the familiar passage of how our body is outwardly wasting away while inwardly being renewed. He said:

Though God does from time to time heal his people from their diseases in this life, and thus gives them a foretaste of the physical glorification that is coming, the experience of all Christians in this life is progressive aging and weakening and failing health and death.

At first glance, this seems pretty grim. But the matter of the fact is, our sickness and deteriorating body, and ultimately death, is a direct result of sin, and truly we deserve wrath and death. I was reminded recently in one of Piper's sermons that anything good that we experience in this life is possible only because Christ has redeemed it for us on the cross. And any healing and comfort is only because Christ has redeemed it for me on the cross. And my physical glorification one day is also because of what Christ has done. So I am grateful today for every little moment of comfort and rest and relief, plus so much more that I have been given which I don't deserve. And at the same time, remembering that I am to fix my gaze on Christ--the author and perfecter of my faith. He is the one who authors my faith and He is the one who will perfect it until the Day I see Him face to face. So I pray now that my gaze is to be fixed not on the good things in this life but on the glory of Christ which is beyond comparison!