Somehow help me see with heaven's eyes.

'When He had said this, He shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out! And out walked the man who had been dead, his hands and feet wrapped in burial clothes, and with a napkin bound around his face. Jesus said to them, Take off the grave clothes and let him go.' - John 11:43-44

Take off the grave clothes.

This passage was talked about a couple of nights ago at our student gathering at church, and the message that stood out was 'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.'
So often we stop at the cross. Jesus came for us - to pay for our sins so that we may have relationship with Him and live life to the full. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that if I were Lazarus, I would want to get those grave clothes off me asap. They must have been so gross! Yet here I am, still walking around with my (metaphorical) grave clothes on! The grave clothes that bind me down and stop me from keeping my eyes fixed on Christ. It's funny that to have life to the full here, is to remember that we were not made for here, and to see with heavenly eyes. To have our gazes tilted upwards. (It sounds so poetic right? Most of the time, I feel like one of those dogs with the bobbing heads - as soon as my eyes are looking at Christ, there's something else that has me looking down again. But, the encouraging thing is that those heads keep bobbing and my eyes won't be fixated on the ground for too long!)
Something that was said the other night that resonated with me, was that the voices that lie to us never go away. It's not exactly an uplifting thought, but it does leave us with a choice. In my mind I guess I always thought that at some point, the voice telling me that I'm not good enough, or that I need to try harder or that I should just give up (etc...the list is as long for me as it is for you) would stop! That it's something we grow out of or that once I achieved x,y and z they would go away. They don't. To have a heavenly mind-set and to take off those grave clothes is a choice. Yes God helps us and tells us what those grave clothes are and He will never leave us or make us do it alone, but it is our choice to look upwards and to listen to His voice over any others.
I don't think I will ever not be the bobbing dog, and I so often mess up and look inwards instead of upwards. But how encouraging that we do not do this alone, and that the victory has already been won and we see with heaven's eyes because of His love.