After writing my last message on “Do You Focus On Jesus,” I received numerous emails. Unfortunately, some of those emails were just plain nasty. One email told me to “Shut up” another said “the reason people lose their focus is because they aren’t real Christians.” Recently I was driving my kids to camp and because I was driving the speed limit, the person behind me decided to tailgate write next to my bumper. As the person past me, he yelled Get off the road you (left out the bad words) and drove past me. I couldn’t help but notice the fish outline on the back of his car. My daughter asked why the person who was speeding yelled. Now I could of told her that the person was a (Blank) but instead I said the he lost his focus and we should pray for him. Why is it that Christians act this way? Are they bad people?

Let’s look at the book of Philippians again. In chapter 1 read how Paul writes “I thank God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am Confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in your will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Paul was not focusing on their faults, how they “Drive too slow” but instead, he was focusing on the power of God and he knew that with they will become perfect through their faith in Jesus Christ. Paul was focusing on Christ Jesus and he was teaching the Christians in Philippi and all of us to focus on our Lord. What or who is the center of your life? It is not your spouse and not even your children. Believe it or not it is not your career and it is definitely not your favorite sports team. Our focus of course in on God and His role in the process of our lives.

Today in the United States, Christians have a divorce rate of over 50%. The majority of Christian have debt and are either obese or overweight. Now if you fall into any of these categories I am not here to scold you and tell you that you are not “a real Christian” as the person who emailed me believes. My goal and the mission of Christian Living Ministry is something else that Paul wrote. Galatians 6:10 and since we are in the Book of Philippians lets look at Chapter two when Paul was teaching us to be more like Christ. In Phil 2:3-7 it reads. “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” The word bond-servant comes from the Greed word doulos which means that he volunteered to be a slave to us.

Did Jesus want people to be sick, and unhealthy? Did he want people to poor and laden with debt? Of course not. But you see folks we live in a world that forces us to focus on the wrong things. You see the reason we do the the things that we do is simply because that is what we think about. Someone does not commit adultery without first thinking about it. People don’t eat the wrong foods without first thinking about it. People do not buy things on credit without first thinking about it. You see when these thoughts come into our mind, we have to renew our mind before we act. Take a quick look at Romans 12 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

So how do we go about renewing our minds and focus on Jesus Christ? Take a look at 2 Cor 10:5-7, here Paul is telling us to take these thought captive. We do this by speaking out loud God’s word! The only way that we can do this is to first understand God’s Word. Of course the only way we can understand God’s word is to read, study and meditate on it. To do that is very simple. When a thought comes into our mind that we know is not right, simple quote a piece of scripture. Here is an example. As you are walking into a fast food restaurant and you know that you should not be poisoning God’s temple that way, say this out loud “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” 1 Cor 6:19

After we start changing what we focus on, we need to start acting on those changes. This can be done by forcing yourself to do something until it becomes a habit. You see once something becomes a habit, it is very hard to break that habit. We all have the ability to create new and better habits to help us live an abundant life.

So today, I will challenge you to start with a habit of reading and studying the Bible every morning. I want you to set your alarm clock 30 minutes earlier and wake up and read the Bible. Do this every day for 21 days. If you can do with someone all the better. This is a great thing to do with your spouse.

Now if you are looking to become restore health to your body, I encourage you to join us on our free live webinar on Tuesday evening. CLICK HERE to Register

Also please join us live every Wednesday to listen to Christian Living Radio l Please share this on your Facebook, MySpace and let all your friends know. Wednesday August 27th the show is called “Bible Study 101”

Remember our Bible Institute is now open. Please visit http://www.ChristianLivingBibleInstitute.org. Our goal is to help 10,000 Christians become ordained pastors through our 60 credit ordination program.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Bob

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 9:06 am and is filed under Weekly Message, Sermons, Bible Study. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.