Keeping Our Focus on the Things That Matter

We all live very BUSY lives. There's hardly ever any moments in our life where we find ourselves having nothing at all to do. We have schedules, hobbies, jobs, school, work, - things that take up our time. But where does God fit into that busy schedule? Do we make sure we make studying His word and praying to Him a part of our daily schedule? Sometimes when we get busy, we tend to not pay too much attention to detail or doing as much as we NEED to be doing.

Paul tells us in Ephesians that we need to make sure we're walking circumspectly - which is the accuracy that comes from extreme carefulness. We need to be paying close attention to detail. Think about what Jesus said about the gate. You're not going to find the way unless you're determined to find it!

We can't let ourselves get too caught up with the things of this world. Think about what Paul says in Philippians 3 - He forgot the things of the earth. There's only one thing that this walk is for. - The one thing is to keep the one thing the one thing.

The point of all this is this; that we need to make the best of our time and make sure we're making time for the things that really matter. Sometimes we need to step back and re-evaluate how we're using our time to make sure that God is right in the center of it all.

Words on Self Control

Peter and Paul both wrote quite a bit about self-control in their letters. Both of them always mention it as a trait that we should be practicing. Sometimes (in some translations), we see the word temperance used. Temperance has to do with having the strength to do what is right.

In Galatians 5:22-23, Paul is talking about practicing the things that are of the fruit of the spirit - "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law."

Self control is something that makes us realize that there is something ABOVE ourselves. In Peter's second letter, he says if we LACK self-control (among other things) - that we will be short-sighted, even to blindness. But if we practice these things (self-control, knowledge, Godliness, perseverance) - we will NEVER be unfruitful or barren in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Self-control shows respect to God and shows him that we long to please him.

I Will Love My Enemies

When Jesus gave His sermon on the mount, He told us that we need to love our enemies.

The reality is that we all have an enemy(s)... The challenge is to overcome feelings of spite and hatred toward those people. We must be the bigger person. - We have to be "heavenly bound" in an earthly place. We must respond to evil with good.

When it comes to our feelings of anger toward enemies... well, we have to overcome those feelings. We have to counteract them with feelings of love and good will.

3 Things that we should think about when we need help loving our enemy;

- Remember the example of Jesus and how He treated His enemies.

- Keep difficulties in perspective and pray about them.

- Refuse to allow OTHERS to control YOU.

If you have an "enemy" in your life, pray that God will help you overcome that trial and help you love that person.

An Amazing Thought

A verse caught my eye this morning as I was turning the pages in my bible to get to a passage of scripture. It was the last verse in the book of John;

"And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."

I guess I've never given much thought to this verse... But isn't it amazing to think about? Don't you want to know what those things were? Think about the first time you ever heard the story of Jesus turning water into wine or feeding the thousands with the 5 loaves and 2 fish or giving sight to the blind... These stories are so amazing! - And to think there's hundreds upon hundreds of more stories just like that! One day, we could have a chance to hear those stories - First hand! That's amazing.

Just another thing that should make us want to get to Heaven!