What Are You Looking At?!

Focus is everything. What you focus is on, is where you go. As the father of a brand new 16-year-old driver, I am reminded of how important focus is, and how easily we allow ourselves to get distracted. Remember what a pay phone was (that’s right “was”)? It is a thing of the past, useless to most because we have cell phones.

Everything is immediate, and not because it is necessary, but because it is convenient (because we can). We don’t need to focus ahead anymore because everything happens right now! As I watch my young driver, I tell her (way more than she wants, I know) over and over and over, that her life may depend on her focus. Every person reading this would agree that focused driving avoids accidents and saves lives. Then why are accidents one of the top ten causes of death in the United States? Because most people believe it will happen to “someone else”.

It is the same about our faith. We all desire salvation…to be “saved”, and most would say that they do what is necessary to get it. Most people live a faith life like they drive a car, and do just what they need to avoid accidents or tickets, right? Is that really safe, and does that guarantee they will get where they are going? As I look to my teenage driver, I am reminded not of how she needs to drive, but also about how I am driving. And with my faith, I can no longer simply think that I am good with my salvation, and only the “someone else” needs worry about all that hell stuff, right?

¹ “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2 (ESV)

Change what you are focusing on, and it will change the direction you are heading. Our faith lives should be lived out focused on the “then” of eternity, which will change the “now” of our behavior.

…just sayin’

In His grip,

Pastor Pat