Sunday, October 14, 2012

FOCUS

Ok, I'll admit it....I'm a little ADD sometimes.  The world bombards us with all sorts of things--what you should look like, what to buy, what to where, where to live.....it's endless.  It is easy to get caught up in the rat race/keeping up with the Joneses mentality.  This is not a new problem; it has existed since time began.  God knew how easily we could lose focus and sight of what is important.

In Deuteronomy 6:5 it says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."   In Deuteronomy 11:18 it tells us, Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  God knows we lose focus easily my friends.  He stresses that we need to be talking about it continually.

Jesus repeats this message twice in the New Testament.  Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. and again in Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

When Jesus shared this He had been questioned about the most important commandment.  I've always found it interesting that it says HEART, SOUL, MIND and STRENGTH.  The message is clear--we are to love the Lord completely.

If I learn to focus on ONE thing it should be God--with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength.  There was a movie a while back (90's I think) called City Slickers.  It had a group of men going on a cattle drive led by a ranch hand.  The ranch hand was rugged and menacing-looking and befriended one of the city slickers.  On the trip he taught him to focus on ONE thing.  I thought that was great--our ONE thing in life--is God-worshiping Him with all that we have/are.

Make God your ONE focus in life.