I want a different focus

God’s grace has come. That grace can save everyone. It teaches us not to live against God and not to do the bad things the world wants to do. It teaches us to live on earth now in a wise and right way—a way that shows true devotion to God. We should live like that while we are waiting for the coming of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He is our great hope, and he will come with glory. (Titus 2:11-13)

Grace has come, so live by doing what is right and wise. The world needs to see us living in true devotion to God, not ourselves. What does that true devotion look like? I think it may resemble choosing to live with others in mind, not always focusing on ourselves. What does it mean to live against God? Sometimes it means we choose to do or say things that will hurt another, but it could just mean we don't put him first in our choices.

When we put Christ first in our lives, it may shift our priorities more than just a little bit. It can change our whole world. Would we choose to stream endless hours of shows while we choose to spend only two minutes in hurried prayer daily? Would we choose to ignore the pain of someone who is experiencing some loss, or put down our agenda to meet even one of their needs? The more we experience grace, the more we see the needs around us.

God gives us a heart for others, as it does not come naturally to us. We might do an occasional nice deed, but when Christ is in the center of our lives, gracedefinesmore than the occasional good deed. It defines our words, actions, and even our thoughts. It gives us hope where others see little hope. It isn't a baseless hope, though. It is a hope based in the evidence of God's love. The evidence? Grace! Grace actually teaches us to live with new focus, impacting our choices.

Every time we receive grace, it is an opportunity to share grace with others who are in need of that same hope. God never expected us to hoard grace. It is meant to be given away time and time again. Maybe grace is needed, but we seldom see it as deserved when we are looking at life through selfish and worldly eyes. Just saying!

Your in my way!

"The man who practices unselfishness, who is genuinely interested in the welfare of others, who feels it a privilege to have the power to do a fellow-creature a kindness - even though polished manners and a gracious presence may be absent - will be an elevating influence wherever he goes."

(Orison Swett Marden)

In whatever you do, don’t let selfishness or pride be your guide. Be humble, and honor others more than yourselves. Don’t be interested only in your own life, but care about the lives of others too. (Philippians 2:3-4)

In whatever you do - it easy to be concerned about others when your own needs are met, isn't it? When your needs haven't been met, how easy is it then? Truth be told, we all have a selfish streak that runs deep, and we sometimes haven't a clue it is there! Selfishness is one of the hardest things for us to recognize, but it can be the one thing that drives a wedge between two people quicker than we might imagine. When our eyes are on ourselves, they aren't on God, and they certainly are not on the needs of others.

Selfishness has a companion known as pride. It is hard to have one without the other. Pride elevates self and that just gives room for selfish ambition to take the helm. Selfishness is put off when others gain priority and wants to somehow gain the same recognition, placement, or blessing. Both are ugly companions and will get us into relationship woes quickly. To be humble means we have to first recognize we are being prideful. To be unselfish requires we acknowledge we are concerned about ourselves more than we are others. Both are painful, but absolutely necessary revelations.

If we want to mature in Christ, we need to ask him to help us recognize where any selfish ambition exists within our lives. When we pray this prayer, we must be ready to see ourselves through his eyes. Christ seldom sugar-coats our sinfulness! He makes it plain for us to see and then he asks some very specific things of us. He may ask us to lay down some of our self-centered activities and look after the needs of those around us. All the while, we may be struggling with 'why' we have to do this, but in time, we see how freeing it actually is to look outside of ourselves!

Pride and selfishness may not want to relinquish their control in our lives, but if we are willing to let God enter into those places where our focus has been directed only upon ourselves, we might just see a reward awaits us that is much better in the long run! Self gets in the way of what God wants to do in and through us, so maybe it is time we ask God to deal with that part of us that is in his way once and for all. Just sayin!

Weeding Time

 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. (Galatians 6:7-8)

A crop of weeds - we all have a few weeds, don't we? What we don't want is for those weeds to overgrow what God is planting within us. A crop suggests there has been a gross over-growth of those ugly things in our lives. Planting is important - what gets sown is what gets reaped. Planting in response to what God asks in our lives is of the greatest importance - for this is what produces the harvest we really desire.

As we think about ways we allow 'weeds' to be planted in our lives, it really all begins and ends with this idea of selfishness. Ignoring the needs of others - focusing primarily on self and what it is that will please 'us' is at the core of what God calls 'weed production'. I know how hard this might be to admit, but when we get our eyes on ourselves more than on others, God isn't willing to allow us to remain that 'inwardly focused' for very long. Why? When we only see 'us' to the extent we shut others out, we aren't allowing the growth he desires. This is the growth that will actually show a hurting and messed up world that he wants to plant good seed into their lives, as well.

If selfishness is at the core of all these 'weeds' in our lives, we need to allow a little 'weeding' to occur until this crop of weeds is finally overgrown by the gracious goodness of God. I have learned you can pull weeds in the yard, but you have to do it repeatedly. You never fully get rid of 100% of those little buggers. Those weeds have a way of reappearing in places I didn't even focus on before. This is why it is so important to allow someone more aware of where they exist to be in control of the weeding process. You and I don't always know we are focusing on self, but allow God's Spirit access to your life long enough and you might just be surprised to see how many 'weeds' he manages to uproot! Just sayin!

Help, I'm sinking here!

Selfishness and pride get in the way in our lives way more than we might like to freely admit to each other, but if we are to grow in Christ we do need to acknowledge this fact! The moment we begin to realize there is something at work within us that is in direct opposition to the work of Christ in our lives is the moment we can begin to choose to live differently. It only takes a moment to change a life course, while it takes a lifetime to live it out. Don't believe me? Look upon the parent who lost their child to drugs and tell me it didn't take a moment to change that parent's entire life course, or the single parent left alone to raise her children simply because there was someone more 'appealing' to her husband. A choice made in a moment - a lifetime to live it out. The moment we make a choice is as significant as each step we take beyond those choices, especially when it comes to growing in the grace and love of Christ.

Don’t let selfishness and prideful agendas take over. Embrace true humility, and lift your heads to extend love to others. Get beyond yourselves and protecting your own interests; be sincere, and secure your neighbors’ interests first. In other words, adopt the mind-set of Jesus the Anointed. Live with His attitude in your hearts. (Philippians 2:3-5)

Selfishness and prideful agendas have a way of taking over our lives and even the lives of others we associate with. When we find ourselves 'inward focused', we overlook the impact of our choices on others. We don't even consider the impact those choices will have upon our own lives, either. Why? I think it is probably because our 'inward focus' keeps us from seeing beyond the immediate. Pride has a way of highlighting the immediate and keeping our attention away from the bigger picture. Think for a moment about the last time you 'covered up' a mistake you made in life simply because you were too ashamed to admit it to anyone. What kept you from admitting the mistake? Some of us may say it was fear because we worried that the others in our lives wouldn't accept us or love us any longer if we admitted to the mistake. Others may say it was the sense that nobody really cares about them anyway, so why would they trust another with their short-comings? 

Pride keeps us from admitting where it is we need the help in our lives the most. We don't want to admit it to Christ, but how silly is that since he already knows? I have been asked why we need to tell him we need his help in that area where we struggle if he already knows. I imagine it might be that there is something powerful in admitting that area of need in our lives that is released in us - by acknowledging the need there is this change in our attitude that occurs. Our attitude begins to become one of trusting him for his help instead of us attempting to 'soldier on' in our own futile self-efforts. If we don't want to admit our need to Christ, we certainly don't want others to know about it, so do you begin to see how this simply choice to hold it all in begins to affect our lives? In time, the single choice to hold it in and deal with it ourselves excludes us from the very thing we need to actually break free of it!

Pride keeps us focused on our 'self interest' - we try to preserve self at the expense of overcoming the very thing that is causing us to sink in the first place! Just sayin!