Keep Your Focus

​Meditation
2 Timothy 2:8—Keep your attention on Jesus Christ as risen from the dead and descended from David.  This is according to my gospel.
 
If someone asked me to share valuable wisdom for living life and limited me to just six words here would be a great response.  Keep your attention on Jesus Christ. Wow—what a powerful message that is! Consider:  

·  If our attention (focus) is on Jesus it is not on the problem(s) and we have immediate hope.  Just yesterday I was given terrible news.  It could easily have consumed me and ruined my week.  Instead, I chose to give it to the Lord and focus on Him. What a difference it makes to have the Lord as our Savior.  “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves” (Matthew 11:28,29).

·  If our attention (focus) is on Jesus and not on ourselves we can walk a perpetual path of humility!  Psalm 25:9 says, “He leads the humble in what is right and teaches them His way.”

·   If our attention (focus) is on Jesus we are free!  “Christ has liberated us to be free. Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

·   If our attention (focus) is on Jesus we are set up to walk in the Spirit and to be a useful agent for heaven’s agenda instead of getting wrapped up in legalism or earthly agendas.  “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing” (Gal. 2:21). Paul focused on Christ risen from the dead and descended from David—a message of grace; a message we want to always keep in front of us.

·   If our attention (focus) is on Jesus, worship is as natural as breathing and we can apply Paul’s encouragement.  “. . . I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

·   If our attention (focus) is on Jesus, the world sees Him through us and we are the obedient light He wants us to be.  “The eye is the lamp of the body.  If your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light” (Mat. 6:22).  Jesus said in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world.”  Therefore, when our eyes are on Jesus they are on the Light and we in turn light up!  Has anyone ever asked you if you are a Christian?  When you responded “yes” they said, “I thought so.”  Why was that?  Because they could see the light shining in you.  
​
By keeping our focus on Jesus, we live a full life and there is nothing that can rob us from what God has in store for us.  Conversely, when we don’t center on Jesus we set ourselves up for all kinds of frustrations, failures, and disheartenment.  
 
Inspiration 
Focus is the ability to direct your attention, efforts, or activity at a desired direction or object without being distracted.—Brian Klemmer in The Compassionate Samurai
 
©2017 Daniel York  ARR. Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)