single focus

"The goal of American Christianity is often a nice marriage, children that don't swear, and good church attendance. Taking the words of Christ literally and seriously is rarely considered. Most of us want a balanced life that we can control, that is safe, and that does not involved suffering." -- Francis Chan in Crazy Love

You've got to know that I hear from God each time I listen to or read anything from Francis Chan.  It is not because Chan has a direct link to God or something special that you and I don't have.  It is simply because Chan allows God to use Him.  Read Pete Wilson's thought on the quote above HERE.

What gets me most is that the people who seem to influence me and the world are those with a single focus.  That single focus is not for a cause or for some issue that is important.  That single focus is on Jesus and his plan for the world.  That single focus is seen in how that person chooses to live and what that person chooses to say.  It's clear what a person stands for.

The last couple weeks I've noticed a question asked that has gotten my attention: the world knows what the church (and Christians) are against, but why is it that they don't know what we stand for?

It is time for us, God's church, to keep and renew and share that single focus.  Think about it.  Do it:

Colossians 3:2 --- Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth

Philippians 3:13 --- Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behindand reaching forward to what lies ahead

1 Peter 1:13 --- Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 12:2 --- fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

That single focus is far too often displaced by what we see, what we hear but most of all by what we worship.  It is time for all of us to seek the single focus of Jesus.  Nothing more and nothing less.