Focus

I have been wanting to write the topic of focus for sometime now, but ironically enough I haven't been focused enough to write. I have been so busy doing other things that I have sometimes stopped and wondered if what I am doing is glorifying God. Is it out of love for others I do something or for myself? Does it overall show that I care about God and what His will might be for my life.

Confession: I am cutting out a few things from my schedules right now just to write this posting. I feel like the Lord has been working on my heart the past few weeks that I just don't want to ignore the opportunity to share what He has shown me any longer. Focus is a word we can use a lot, so I want to put it in another way. Instead of asking

 

Where is your focus?

I want to ask

Where are your desires?

 



Are they Biblically focused? That is can you say in your day to day living you live to care for the needs of those around you? To encourage. To strengthen. To show that you are giving up time, energy, and care for your own self to live like Christ did? I can't say I am consistent enough. Can you?

I look at verses like Mark 12:30-31, which says,

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

and I am convicted. Especially when you pair them with

James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Phillipians 2:5-8

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

 

John 10:29

 

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.

 

How many of us can say we are focused on the cross enough throughout our day? To be willing to give up ourselves into the hands of God? To let go of our desires that come naturally and ask God what He wants us to do.

 

When I look at what I do in a day, I find myself to be so self focused. I want to hang out with friends. Talk about my problems. Be the advise giver. Be holy and spiritual. And if someone threatens that, I can get bitter, jealous, or angry. None of it is good. And none of it helpful for me or the care and need of others. Let alone expanding God's kingdom while I still have life here on earth.

 

Today, as we go about our day, let's ask ourselves where our focus is. Is it to love and please the Lord or ourselves? To love I think of caring. To be willing to listen to what God knows is right. Knowing as in already having the the perfect end result of my future in mind. This means I should entrust God with my life by humbling myself before Him and obeying His word. So let's do two things today:

 

1.) Read the word

2.) Pray/Talk to God

 

Prayer is just a special way to say to talk to God. Let's talk to him. Let's pray without ceasing. Let's lift each other up in Christ. Focusing on him. Encouraging one another. Reveiling on His word. And remembering the love and grace He extends to us each and everyday. By this we reflect on the ultimate truth of what will matter in the end and not our own needs, cares, woes, or sorrows that can so easily take away the joy we can have in Christ. Focus on Him today, and I gurantee you will not be disappointed.