Priscilla Shirer - Keep Your Eyes Fixed on Jesus
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Summary
In this message, Priscilla Shirer encourages believers facing overwhelming chaos, fear, or multiple crises to intentionally fix their eyes on God rather than their problems, as this shifts perspective and brings stability, just like a child safe in her grandfather’s arms despite a barking dog. Drawing from 2 Chronicles 20, where King Jehoshaphat admits powerlessness against a vast army but declares «our eyes are on You,» she explains how familiar struggles combined with new ones can feel surrounding and defeating. Ultimately, focusing on Jesus—His sovereignty, promises, and unchanging character—refocuses us, reminds us of His control, and empowers us to stand firm without questioning God’s goodness.
Opening Prayer
Lord, I thank You. I thank You that Your word is living, active, sharper than any two-edged sword. Lord, I pray that in these next few moments, You would do what You do: take these simple thoughts, drill them deeply down into our souls, make us different after we hear Your voice today. In Jesus' name, I pray, amen, amen.
The Care Bear Story
My niece’s name is Caris. We’ve called her Care Bear since the day that she was born. You know, she’s a grown woman with children now, and I still call her Care Bear. When Caris was little, I remember on one occasion she was at my parents' house, so her grandparents' house. We were all there hanging out, and she was running around in the backyard when a stray dog came out of nowhere.
The dog was barking, and in her mind, this dog was incredibly vicious and was getting ready to attack her. We were a little older, so we could see that the dog really wasn’t that big and wasn’t going to do any damage. He was probably just hyper, active, and excited to see some humans in the backyard that day. But to Caris, at three years old and really small, that dog looked vicious, and so she was running away from this dog in terror.
Safety in Grandfather’s Arms
Now, you know the more you run, the more the dog thinks you want to play, so the dog chased her more frantically and feverishly, barking louder. The more all of that escalated, the more fear grew in Caris’s heart. So she ran; she ran and my dad, her grandfather, saw the chaos outside, walked onto the back patio, and opened his arms so that Caris would be able to run directly into his embrace.
She ran as fast as she could and ran directly into his arms. He scooped her up, and once he scooped her up, she was now high above the ground level where the dog was. She looked down at the dog, looked back into the face of her grandfather, looked back down at the dog, looked back up into the face of her grandfather over and over again, tears streaming down her face.
Finally, she was able to compose herself and wipe them away as the dog continued to bark. She looked down at the dog finally and said, «Everything changes, » because now she was in her grandfather’s arms. Everything changes based on what you are looking at. That’s the challenge I have for you today: what are you looking at?
What Are You Looking At?
There’s so much to see when you scroll past your Twitter feed, when you scroll through your Instagram feed, or when you watch the news, whatever channel you tend to watch. No matter where you are, your vision is centered; you’re going to see and look at things that are vying for our attention.
Some of those things, when we give them our attention, cause discouragement to settle in on us. I mean, you can literally feel it—the anxiety like a cloak weighing you down, burdening you, keeping you up at night, making the tears fall from your eyes.
If you look at your problems too long in your personal life or the struggles we face collectively in our culture and in our world, if you look at them too long, they’re going to make the tears flow from your eyes, make your heart palpitate, and keep you from being able to have a sense of stability emotionally and mentally in your life. So I ask you again: what are you looking at? What are you giving your attention to?
Not Avoidance, But Prioritized Focus
It doesn’t mean avoidance; it doesn’t mean denial. It doesn’t mean unawareness of the realities you are facing in your relationships or in the dynamics we are facing culturally. It just means that you give not just the same amount of attention, but you give an escalated, prioritized amount of attention to looking at who your God is—the promises He has declared and His truth as He has written it down in His word.
I’m asking you, where have you been looking? What have you been giving your attention to? Maybe so much of the struggle we’ve had to find a sense of peace, stability, and ease is because we’ve been fixing our eyes on the wrong thing.
Fix Your Eyes on Jesus
The writer of Hebrews puts it this way: fix your eyes on Jesus. He’s the author, He’s the finisher of our faith, meaning He is still sovereign, He is still in control, He is still seated on the throne, He still is who He said He is, and He can still do everything that He says that He can do.
Nothing that is happening in your personal life or mine, in our culture or yours, is outside of the control of our great God. But you might forget that if you keep looking at the chaos swirling around you. You’ve got to be intentional, as do I, about meditating on the truths of God, about looking into them, and finding out what His promises declare to be true about my family, my health, my son, my daughter, my church, my country, and the culture that I live in. What has He declared to be true? I’m going to meditate on this more than I meditate on everything else.
Jehoshaphat’s Prayer
Where have you been fixing your eyes? There is a story in Scripture that I’m continually drawn back to; I have been for years. In 2 Chronicles chapter 20, if you still use a Bible, you know—one with actual paper pages—and you want to turn back there with me, you can. Otherwise, your iPhone, your iPad, or any manner of device you have available can get you to 2 Chronicles. It’s in the Old Testament. There’s a 1 Chronicles, but also a 2 Chronicles.
And in 2 Chronicles chapter 20, there is a verse that leaps out at me every time I see it. Part of the reason it leaps out at me is because I’ve underlined it, and I underlined it back in 2010. So I have several things I’ve underlined throughout this Bible that my parents gave me when I was about 17 years old—different color highlights, different color underlines. I value this Bible so much because it’s actually like a little bit of a track record of my relationship with God.
Back in 2010, for reasons I don’t know, I underlined this verse. I can’t remember what was happening, but I put the date right beside it. It was December of 2010, about ten years from where we are right now. I underlined this verse; it’s a verse that still speaks to me as poignantly today as it did back then.
Our Eyes Are on You
And listen, if you underline stuff or highlight stuff on your electronic Bible or your paper Bible, this is a verse that deserves to be emphasized. 2 Chronicles 20 verse 12, King Jehoshaphat prays and says, «We are powerless, God, before this great multitude who are coming against us. We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on You.» I’ll read it again: Jehoshaphat prays; he’s honest and he says, «Because of this great multitude, we are powerless and we don’t know what to do. But, Lord, this is one thing we do know: we do know where we’re setting our eyes. Our eyes are on You.»
Jehoshaphat the Resolute King
Jehoshaphat was the king of Judah, and he was a good king. He was known for revering God. He was known for leading people into a relationship with God. He was known for acting resolutely and trying to get everyone under his jurisdiction to honor Yahweh as the one true God.
In fact, it’s so interesting that that is actually what comes right before this segment of Scripture in chapter 20, where we’re going to find out what made Jehoshaphat have to pray like that. What made this king, who had so much power at his disposal, who had tactical teams, weapons, and armor, feel so chaotic and overwhelmed?
The last line of the previous chapter, the verse that came right before that, tells us that Jehoshaphat acted resolutely and he was upright. Now listen, I think that’s interesting, that the verse that comes right before all this chaos unfolds in chapter 20 is a verse telling us that this king made a decision to act resolutely and honor God.
Attacks After Resolution
If this doesn’t tell us about the schemes of the enemy, I don’t know what does. I can tell you right now that as soon as you make the decision to honor God in some area of your life, as soon as you decide that you’re going to be resolute in your integrity, that you’re going to honor God in your tithes and offerings, that you’re going to offer forgiveness that the Spirit of God is telling you to offer, that you’re going to lead your family in the ways of the Lord, and that you’re going to honor your commitment to be in the word of God on a daily basis, as soon as you, like the king of Judah, determined to act resolutely, you can know that chapter 20 is on the way.
In chapter 20, there is a multitude that will come against you—a scheme of the enemy to try to water down the resolution that you are making. In this day and age, you need to know that the enemy is scheming against you and against me, particularly right now, as the people of God, because more now than ever, our light needs to shine. Now more than ever, we need to be salt so that people can taste and see that our God is good. He’s going to try to water down our resolutions.
So Jehoshaphat makes this resolution, and in the very next chapter, chapter 20, he finds such a great multitude coming against him that he admits, «I feel like I’m powerless. I feel like I don’t even have a plan to handle this army, this multitude that has come up against me. But this I do know: my eyes, Lord, are going to be on You.»
Three Armies Against Judah
Now, follow me back up to the first verse of chapter 20, and you’ll see what was happening in Jehoshaphat’s experience. It says, «Now after this"—after what? Jehoshaphat’s resolution to honor God. Right after that resolution, it says that the sons of Moab and Ammon, together with the Meunites, came to make war against Jehoshaphat.
Now let that sit right there for a moment. We’ve got not one army, not two armies, but three armies that have chosen to come up against Jehoshaphat—the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Meunites. Now, what you should know is that two of those armies Judah had faced before. Two of them weren’t new. The Moabites and the Ammonites were two people groups that Judah had faced previously. You can find record of it throughout the Old Testament.
Those two particular enemies had come up against Judah; they had made war against them before. In other words, Judah knew about the strategies of those two particular enemies. They had faced them before; they had probably studied their tactical plans. They were aware of these two enemies.
Familiar Enemies
So had it just been those two armies that had come against the king of Judah, I wonder if verse 12 would have ever been uttered. I wonder if Jehoshaphat would have ever said, «Lord, I don’t have the power. God, I don’t have a plan, but my eyes are on You.» I wonder if it were just those two, would Jehoshaphat’s prayer not have been as fervent or specific?
I wonder if he had been as intentional about focusing on Yahweh and fixing his eyes on Yahweh if his circumstances had not been quite so dire because he’d faced these two enemies before. Just like those enemies you’ve faced before. You know the ones that honestly, if you just pay a little attention, you can see them coming because they’re nothing new.
You know the trouble you had in your marriage in year two; now you’re dealing with it in year 20—it’s nothing new; it’s just an escalated version of the same difficulties you were having before. Or that child—now he’s 15, and the stuff you’re dealing with at 15 really, when you think about it, is the same stuff you were dealing with when they were three. It’s just an escalated version of the same issues.
Recurring Struggles
Or the anxiety that you face—this is not a new anxiety; it may be attached to a new scenario, but honestly, if you look back, you can see that this is the same kind of anxiety that overtakes you about these kinds of issues, and you’ve been dealing with this for the last decade or so.
If we are careful, watchful, and mindful, we can actually see that the enemy isn’t that creative. The enemy has always come to steal, kill, and destroy. If we’ll just take a moment, we’ll be able to detect where his fingerprints are; where he tries to stop us, discourage us, or make us think that we are defeated, even though he knows he can never defeat us if we are sons and daughters of the Most High God.
Be Proactive Against Known Attacks
Have you paid attention to the enemies, the issues, the dilemmas, the schemes, and the tactics that the enemy has been trying to use against you? Because if you and I look carefully, we’ll see that he’s been trying to trip our child up in that way for a long time. He’s been trying to trip our marriage up in that same way, in different forms, but that same general direction for a long time.
He’s been trying to discourage us in our ministry, in our careers, or in our jobs culturally and collectively. He’s been trying to trip us up in that same way for a long time. These aren’t new enemies. When you are facing the same enemy over and over again, it means you should be girded. You and I should be prepared; we should be proactive about making sure we can stand firm against the scheme of the enemy.
Story of My Son JC
I was thinking about this in relation to my son, JC. He’s my second son. I have three boys—Jackson is the oldest, Jerry Jr. is my middle son—we call him JC—and then Jude is my youngest. They’ve been with me to Hillsong New York many, many times, and my second son had an allergic reaction early on in his life to the change in seasons.
You know we’re in Texas, so around the fall and coming out of winter into the spring, we could have 40 degrees one day and then, you know, 78 degrees the next day. It just fluctuates up and down, and he was having allergies related to that. But it seemed to be more than allergies; it was something with his bronchial tubes. His respiratory system just was not responding well.
I took him to the doctor, and she said, «Yeah, his bronchial tubes are definitely inflamed, but I really don’t want to label him an asthmatic because I think it’s something that we can get under control.» But she said, «Priscilla, here’s what I need you to do: I’m going to give you a breathing system so that he can have treatments at home. I’ll give you a little antibiotic that you’ll put inside this little breathing system; you’ll put it on his nose and put it in the mask for him to breathe through so that he can ingest this medication.»
She said, «Priscilla, don’t wait until he’s wheezing to do it. Do it proactively.» Meaning, if you can see, because the meteorologist is telling you that the weather is getting ready to change suddenly—we already have enough years of a track record with JC’s health to know in advance that if the weather shifts suddenly, he’s going to have a bronchial reaction to it.
So Priscilla, if you, as a responsible parent, will be mindful of the weather changes and proactively give him this preventative medication beforehand, it will keep his lungs or his bronchial tubes from spasming in the way they’ve been spasming in the past. It would be irresponsible parenting for me to know how his bronchial tubes are going to react and not prepare proactively.
Prepare Spiritually
Think about the ways that the enemy has been trying to take advantage of you in the past. Think about the ways he’s tried to make you feel unstable or tried to infringe upon the sanctity of your marriage. Think about the ways he’s tried to trip your son or daughter up because of the weaknesses that they already have in their flesh or the tendencies they may have.
Think about them and pray. Pray to that end. Search the Scriptures for the promises of God in regard to that specific issue. Post those promises in your home so that you can have your whole family alert to what God says in that regard.
Paul says, in Ephesians chapter 6, «Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand firm against the schemes of the enemy.» What are some things that you are facing that, honestly, when you think about it, are like these two enemies that Jehoshaphat and Judah were facing? They’re nothing new; we’ve faced these enemies before.
The Overwhelming Third Enemy
So for Jehoshaphat, two of these were common enemies. The reason why, in verse 12, Jehoshaphat likely says, «I’m powerless; I’m planless; I can’t even come up with a plan—even if I had the power, I wouldn’t have the insight, the knowledge, the discernment, or the wisdom to figure out a plan to stand against this multitude”—the reason why he says it is because of this third army: it’s the Meunites.
It’s the alliance and the merging of all three of these difficult situations, these armies, these multitudes coming against them all at one time. That’s what causes him to say, „I’m powerless.“ That’s what causes him to say, „I can’t even come up with a plan.“
The reality is that for many of us, it’s not just the pandemic; it’s that the pandemic was piled on to a time in our life where we were already dealing with our own problems. It’s not just the isolation; it’s the isolation layered on top of the issues we were already dealing with.
It’s not just the virus; it’s the virus piled on to the fact that we felt like we couldn’t get victory before any of this started. It’s not just the new army; it’s that we were already dealing with other ones when the third one showed up. Now we feel surrounded on all sides.
Surrounded Like Israel at the Red Sea
It kind of reminds me of the children of Israel in Exodus chapter 13, right after they’ve been freed from Egypt. They come up against the Red Sea. It’s not just the Red Sea that actually causes the problem; it’s that Pharaoh and the Egyptian army are coming up behind them.
Scholars say that there would have been so many thousands of them that they would have spanned out around the west and east sides of the children of Israel as those refugees tried to escape to the promised land. So it wasn’t just that the Red Sea was in front; it’s that Pharaoh and his army were behind and beside, so they were surrounded on all sides.
I know that you know how that feels because I know how it feels. It’s when you’ve got a struggle in one part of your life, and then another one pops up on this side of your life. Just when you feel like you’ve taken care of that one, then this one pops up. Just when you get a little bit of a handle on that one, then this one pops up.
And when your personal life is a little bit settled today, then culturally, something strikes up in our country or in our culture or in our world or in the life of a friend, and all of a sudden, you’re surrounded all over again.
Powerless But Eyes on God
In the face of all that surrounding calamity and chaos, sometimes we can say exactly like Jehoshaphat did: „Now, I admit, I’m powerless. I do not know what to do.“ But here’s what we can say: even when we are powerless and planless, we can say, „I don’t know what to do, but this I do know: my eyes are going to be fixed on You.“
Fixing your eyes on Jesus when you’re surrounded is, I believe, one of the benefits; it’s one of the outworkings of God’s purposes when He allows His children to be surrounded by difficult circumstances.
God Allows for Our Good
I always hesitate to say when God has caused something. I’ve heard folks say maybe that God has been the cause of some of the negative things that we’ve been facing in our country and in our culture and in our world. I always hesitate to say what God is or is not doing.
But this I do know: everything that happens in your life, in mine, in my country, in yours, in my culture, and in yours—everything that happens has to first pass through the fingers of God before it ever enters into our experience. So whether or not God caused it, I don’t know. But this I can say with a sure level of certainty: He has allowed it, and if He’s allowed it, that means it’s going to be for your good and for His glory.
That means there’s something that is supposed to be birthed out of it if we’ll just pay attention and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Not only will keeping our eyes on Him, like Caris keeping her eyes on her grandfather, give her a sense of steadiness, security, and stability even though trouble was still in her sphere of influence—not only will it keep you stable, but it will allow you to see that there is a good God who is still seated on the throne, who has not been displaced from His position of omniscience, omnipresence, and sovereignty and complete control.
God is Still in Control
He is not surprised by the things that have surprised us. Why would He allow them? We may never know on this side of eternity, but what we can know is that our God is good, that He is faithful, and that if nothing else, all of the chaos swirling around us and the multitudes that we are facing in our midst may make us afraid, as they do with Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles chapter 20.
You’ll see Jehoshaphat say, „I’m afraid. I don’t know what to do.“ But you can make the commitment that your eyes will be on Jesus. Changing the way you handle this situation will change the way you face the difficulty; it will change the way you wake up each day.
Instead of being hopeless, like so many others—and they are now questioning their faith and doubting who God is—when you keep your eyes focused on the character of God, when you refuse to allow yourself to question who God is, you can ask questions of God without questioning God.
Refocus on Jesus
Do you see the difference in that little nuance there? Ask your questions. I’ve got mine; I’m sure you’ve got yours. But you and I can ask questions about our situation and about all these multitudes that we are facing without questioning the character of God.
Keep your eyes on Jesus. Jehoshaphat says, „My eyes are fixed on You, “ and if there is one thing that being surrounded on all sides is supposed to do in our lives, it’s supposed to refocus our attention.
Since we’ve tried everything else and since we’ve run to all these other resources and found them lacking, that there is no solution—that they’re not powerful enough, that they’re not calculated enough, that they’re not diligent enough, and that they are not able to stand up against this great multitude we are facing—finally this kind of difficulty is the one that makes us drop to our knees and look to the hills from whence cometh our help.
Do you realize this is what He’s been after all along? Refocusing our priority and our attention, calling us back to Him—a church whose eyes are back on Him—not the programs, not the buildings, not even the services, but collectively gathering physically like we’ve grown so used to. Of course, we’ll come back to that at some point.
But I wonder if this is the time where He wanted to shake us awake out of spiritual complacency and draw us back to Him. Get your eyes on Me, He calls out to the church, to you and to me. Let’s look back to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He is still where our help comes from.
Kids with Power
One of my favorite movies in recent years was The Incredibles 2. I like The Incredibles, the first one and the second one, but I got to tell you, if you didn’t see the second one, you must because it was really good. In this one, Elastigirl, you know, the wife, kind of comes up to the forefront just a little bit, and so do the children.
They are all using their superpowers to stand against the evils of the day. At one point, Elastigirl, in true mother fashion, worries about her kids. There are just too many demands on them; they’re having to grow up real quickly and mature in their superpower skills. She’s worried about them, and she says to her husband in a sweet moment, „But they’re just kids.“
Mr. Incredible looks back at Elastigirl and says, „Yeah, but they’re kids with power. Whether or not they choose to use that power is up to them, but they sure do have access to it.“