Be not diverted.

Isaac Ambrose has written:

“But first, we must look off all other things, the note is this, We must take off our mind from every thing which might divert us in our Christian race from looking unto Jesus. Aphorontes, the first word, or first piece of a word in my text, speaks to us thus, hands off, or eyes off from anything that stands in the way of Jesus Christ. I remember it was written over Plato’s door, “There’s none may come hither that is not a geometer.” But on the door of my text is written clean contrary: “No earthly-minded man must enter here.” Not any thing in the world, be it ever so excellent, if it stand in the way of Jesus Christ, is to be named the same day; we must not give a look, or squint at anything that may hinder this fair and lovely sight of Jesus.”

“This was the Lord’s charge to Lot, ‘Look not behind thee.’ Gen 19 : 17. He was so far to renounce and detest the lewdness of Sodom, as that he must not vouchsafe a look towards it.

“At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the holy One of Israel, and he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands.” Isa. 17 : 7, 8. This was the fruit of God’s chastisement on the elect of Israel, that he should not give a look to the altars, lest they diverted, or drew his eyes from off his Maker.”

“‘We must look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen,’ saith Paul, 2 Cor. 4 : 18. A Christian’s aim is beyond visible things. O when a soul comes to know what an eternal God is, and what an eternal Jesus is, and what an eternal crown is; when it knows that great design of Christ to save poor souls, and to communicate himself eternally to such poor creatures, this takes off the edge of its desires as to visible temporal things; what are they in comparison?”

(Ambrose, Isaac, Looking Unto Jesus: A View of the Everlasting Gospel, Harrisonburg, Virginia: Sprinkle Publications, 1986, p. 19.)