The Greek word translated ‘respect’ means something like this: ‘he looked to the reward or the recompense’, ‘he fixed his eye on the future reward’. Now those translations are good, but actually ‘he had respect unto’ is better than all of them, if only we understand the way the English word is used. The original Greek puts it negatively. It says, ‘he looked away from all else in order to concentrate on this one thing: the recompense of Christ.’ He looked away from the riches in Egypt and his station, his position, and by implication, it means, he looked away from Egypt in order to fix his eye on Christ. There is a process implied in the Greek. He did not merely look ahead or look to, he looked away from the one consciously and deliberately. Now to understand the nuance of the Greek helps us greatly to apply this. This is what you do: you are thinking of your career, of your subjects for study, your place and where you will live, and then the devil comes and to your quite legitimate and necessary thinking and he adds other ingredients. ‘You would look splendid if you achieved this; this would look much better for you, people would think much better of you if you did this or that.’ The devil starts to push your perfectly legitimate decision-making thinking into self-indulgence and self-consideration. Then what do you do? You take your eyes and your gaze and divert your thinking from his suggested objectives and you put them on eternal things. ‘I am a child of God. I am not an admirer of the world, a devotee of its pathways. I am called and saved by Christ at great cost and I want to be a blessing to others souls and to have Christian priorities. I am not going to be pushed that far.’ You take your gaze off one and you consciously direct it to the other.
Are you proving Christ; do you have communion with him? You understand all things, yea the deep things God. You understand why the world is as it is. You discern all situations. You have mighty answers to prayer. You have a certain inheritance on high. These are great riches. But in this world you will be scorned for your values, for your allegiance to Christ, for your expectation of his return, for your lifestyle. What is your assessment of these alternatives? You have far, far greater riches proving him; you have character formed in you, a sanctification process is proceeding within you; you have purpose; you have usefulness for Christ and eternal fruit. This is far, far greater than all the treasures in Egypt.