Christmas Isn’t Christmas Till It Happens In Your Heart

Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in your heart
Somewhere, deep inside you, is where Christmas really starts
So, give your heart to Jesus, you’ll discover when you do
That it’s Christmas, really Christmas for you.

Jesus brings warmth like a winter fire, a light like a candles glow
He’s waiting now to come inside, like He did so long ago
Jesus brings gifts of truth and life and makes them bloom and grow
So welcome Him with a song of joy, and when He comes you’ll know

That Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in your heart
Somewhere, deep inside you, is where Christmas really starts
So, give your heart to Jesus, you’ll discover when you do
That it’s Christmas, really Christmas

Christmas, really Christmas
Christmas, really Christmas for you

A Christmas Spirit

It’s Christmas Eve. Christmas is almost here. The tree is up, the lights are lit. Silent Night is playing on the radio. Presents are under the tree. I’ll be surrounded by smiling family in just a few hours. It seems that my heart should be overflowing with Christmas Spirit. But, it’s not.

“Why?” You may ask. “You seem to have all the ingredients of a warm and cuddly Christmas.” Well, if life were a Christmas special, I would say, “Yes, I do seem to. I must just be a helpless state of patheticness.” If life were a Charlie Brown Christmas special, I would say “Well, I think the extensive amount of commercialism surrounding the celebration of Christ’s birth is bringing me down.” But life is neither, and neither of those answers are true for me this year.

Truth is, the things that Christmas brings such as a tree and music and presents, normally lighten my spirit, and the commercialism doesn’t bring me down or keep me from celebrating the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of Christ. This year, there’s something else bothering me, there’s something else keeping me from having a Christmas Spirit and I fear that I can blame it on no one, but myself.

Have you noticed that we, as people, want a lot of things, and we want them a lot. But, once we receive what we’ve been pining for, it quickly becomes unimportant. It doesn’t satisfy us. We obviously would no longer feel desire for something we have already gained, but we should be feeling gratefulness at gaining something we wanted so badly, but instead we turn our unsatisfied hearts towards a new desire for something “new and better”, something that we hope will bring us happiness. This concept is illustrated well by a child during the Christmas season. Let’s say a child has been begging and begging for a MEGATRON 2THOUSAND! with lights and bells and whistles and the whole shebang. He wants that toy so bad, he pleads his parents to purchase it for him for months before Christmas and when Christmas morning finally arrives, he gets it! The squeals of joy coming from this child can be heard for blocks as he opens up his present, but a few short days, or even just hours later he’s no longer playing with it. He’s not excited. He’s not grateful and, by January 1st he wants the new MEGATRON 3THOUSAND!!!!!!! Even though most of us would tend to stray from identifying ourselves with that stereotypical child of Christmas, I must say that I can clearly see myself. I don’t desire a Megatron anythousand and my cycle of “Want. Get. Discard. Want. Etc…” may not be as evident, but it’s still there, and there in-lies my problem.

I, like the child, want things with feelings of incessant longing and desire. I strive to achieve satisfaction by acquiring things I think I want, things that I want to believe will make me happy. Sometimes I get them, sometimes I don’t. But even when I do, the satisfaction doesn’t last long and soon once again, I’m back to striving and longing for some other thing that I hope will bring my fulfillment.

Back to having a Christmas Spirit, A Christmas Spirit is a spirit, a human soul that is celebrating and is grateful for the gift God sent in his son and the salvation and forgiveness that he brought to us through his death and resurrection. It’s a soul that is worshiping through mouth, deed, and heart. It’s a soul that is given to God in appreciation for His gift and hence it’s a soul filled and satisfied with God’s joy.

Wait, stop. Did we just find something satisfying?
I think we did.
God’s joy is satisfying. And it’s free. God offered it to us when Jesus came to earth as our Savior. But just like any gift, it’s not yours until you accept it. To have God’s satisfying joy for yourself, you have to accept it. You have to accept His salvation from our sins. And when you accept His salvation and allow Him to guard your soul, He’ll make your winter spirit into a Christmas Spirit.

Here’s where my problem comes in, I have accepted God’s gift of salvation, I have been given God’s joy, but I have allowed myself to become distracted. Instead of embracing God’s joy, I’ve become distracted by my own selfishness. I’ve become distracted by things I want and desire. I’ve been pulled into a Christmas Oblivion of selfish ambitions and self-satisfaction. Like the child in the illustration became ungrateful for his present, I’ve become ungrateful for God’s amazing gift as I’ve allowed myself to become obsessed with wanting other things. My joy has become tarnished with the sin of my selfishness. My situation is expressed well my Paul’s words in Galatians 4:8-9

“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?"

My Christmas Spirit might be in pretty bad shape right now, but it can be salvaged. Because it’s Christmas, and Christmas, like I’ve mentioned, is all about Christ and the gifts of forgiveness God gave us through Christ’s sacrifice. And God will forgive me and polish my joy up again, if I choose to give Him my soul once more instead of allowing my soul to be enslaved and controlled by my selfish wants and desires. A chapter later in Galatians 5:16 Paul speaks of how to beat the slavery he spoke of in chapter 4,

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

Well, that seems like a tidy little solution to my problem, but what does it mean to walk by the spirit? It means: To live a life of daily surrender. To daily come before God and surrender your soul, your life, your love to Him. To live a life of gratefulness for the gift God has given you and to be satisfied with His joy. To have a relationship with and walk with God.

So, today, Christmas Eve, I’m coming before God, laying down my soul, my life, my heart, and my selfish desires and asking Him to replace my cold winter spirit with a joyful Christmas Spirit. The gift of the baby King who lay in a manager has changed my life and given me true forgiveness for my sins. For that I am truly grateful. And that precious gift is truly all I need. So, that’s where I’ve found my Christmas Spirit.

Where are you finding yours?

Battle Of The Heart

Lately, I’ve been feeling pretty crummy.
I seem to have no passion for life. I have no passion for following God or His commands. I have no love. Life has become colorless. The lone passion of my heart that is still driving me forward in this life is a passion and a love for myself.

This past summer, I was very blessed with opportunities to be away from my normal life and focus on God. I was able to put my own selfish desires aside and strive to follow Him and his righteousness in my life. I was able to put my focus on God and live for Him and my life was full of passion and joy, pure, uncontainable joy.

But in the last few months, my joy has left me, my focus as has become fuzzy and with that, my vision has become cloudy.
I’ve watched as my focus has shifted from God, to myself. Slowly, as I’ve gone about my everyday life I have allowed myself to strive to live for myself, to bring glory to myself and to deny God in the moments of my life. I have in a way, turned my back on Him. I’ve chosen to ignore Him and His leading. And without God’s presence in my life, without Him validating me with His love, I have had to validate myself. And with that new task I have become prideful. I have become self-seeking. I have tried to elevate myself to make me feel better about myself. I have been seeking for approval, not from God, but from people and in the process I have only become insecure, lustful, hate-filled and bitter.
I am trying to control my own life and I am failing miserably.

As I’ve tried to control my ever-moving life, I’ve found that I can’t do it alone, so I’ve allowed sin to come in to “help” and now, my sin has its claws in my heart. It has darkened my heart and taken my joy and putting an unquenchable longing inside me and even though the pain of that thirst is agonizing I am holding onto the sin, clutching for dear life. I can’t let go, because I love my sin. And I hate that fact.

How can this be? How can I love what I hate and hate what I love?
Deep inside me, God still lives. There is still a small flicker of Light beneath the darkness that now surrounds my heart. There is deep desire and passion to follow God coming from my faith and the gift of salvation I accepted as a young girl and that’s where the battlefield for the conflict of my heart is taking place. There is a battle waging inside me for my heart. I love the thing that I hate. I hate what it does to me, but I still love the thing that is tearing me to shreds.

The one consolation in all of this is that I am not alone in this feeling.
The apostle Paul wrote these words in Romans 7.

“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!”

“So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin.”

“Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

I am a prisoner of war to the sin that is enslaving my body: mind, soul and heart, but there is an escape. God wants to deliver me. Because God still loves me. God wants my heart. Even in the wretched state I am in. Even though I am covered in my own waste and sin, God still loves me and wants me. Because when God looks at me, He does not see a little girl covered in muck and grime holding a dirty heart filled with her sin; He sees a beautiful child, with the clean heart of his perfect Son, Jesus, who took my sins upon Himself and died so that I might be free of them.

I don’t understand why God loves me. I don’t understand why He constantly gives me chance after chance after chance after chance even when I blatantly defy Him and His commands. I don’t understand His unconditional grace for me. Sometimes, it even angers me. Even when I disobey, He always forgives me. It seems unjust to me that I am able to “get away” with my sin like that, but I’m finding that even though I am forgiven and given another chance, there is punishment for my sin, in how it enslaves me. And although odd, I find comfort in that fact, but what’s even more odd is that, I don’t find strong motivation to follow God because of that fact.

I think that it is impossible to follow God out of fear. You might be able to initially, but eventually fear alone will not be enough. As humans we were created to love and be loved. Love is the biggest motivation we have. My strong love for myself is what motivates me to hold on to my sin so tightly. My love for myself is stronger than my fear. Love is stronger than all else and love is the only thing that will motivate us and give us the strength to follow God. But in order to love God, we must deny our first love, the love we are born with due to our sin nature, our love for ourselves.

“Then he (Jesus) said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” Luke 9:23-24

This sort of self-denial is the single-most hardest thing to do in life, because our love for ourselves and our sin is so strong, but God’s love for us is stronger. And out of His great love for us, the same love that caused God to become man and die for us, He will empower us to love Him the same way he loves us if we ask Him and we seek to follow him in our lives. For I know, that life lived for yourself is overwhelming and painful. It is purposeless and a slavery to sin, but a life, given freely to God, out of love and obedience is filled with freedom from slavery, joy, passion and purpose.

So tonight, I am coming to God with a broken heart, torn apart by sin. I am giving it to Him once again. Because even though I am dirty and torn God wants my heart. He wants to free me from the claws of my sin that are enslaving me. He wants to heal my heart and make it clean. He wants to wrap me in His arms. He wants to fill my heart with His love. Why does He love me? I don’t know. I’m not worth it. But even so, He does love me and because of that, I will once again come before Him and deny myself. I will give Him my heart and give myself fully to the work of the Lord, because I know that labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58), but has a life full of passion, of joy, of purpose, of understanding, of holiness, of righteousness and of love.

“Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:57

Are You Ready? In memoriam of the 9/11 victims and my grandfather.

As some of you know, my grandpa died this past February.
I recently saw a binder of his on my grandma's kitchen table entitled Devotional Life and asked her if I could borrow it. Upon reading it I felt a little bit like I was seeing my grandpa's heart. He had prayer lists, verses, hymns, writings, prayers and journalings typed out to look at everyday to remind him to follow God whole-heartedly. It stuck out to me that he REALLY loved his family and that he REALLY loved and God and that his life was completely centered around his Savior, and although I have seen where my grandpa's faults lay, mostly I see a man who truly loved and wanted to serve God with his life.

Anyways, here's a writing I found that particularly stood out to me

Are you ready? By Douglas G. Beason

"And the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air
and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thess 4:16, 17

If you knew,
for a fact, that Christ would return tomorrow, what would we do tonight?
First of all, we would probably check ourselves to be sure all was well.
• Those harsh words - we must apologize.
• The brief time in the Word -
vs. eternity!
• Our mechanical Grace?
• Really prayer?
What does He think?

All these "little" things must surely be cared for before Christ returns, and HE IS Coming!
May come Tonight?
Are You Ready?

On Dec 7, 1941, an enemy bombed our fleet of ships in Pearl Harbor. This in spite
of the fact that the Army Chief of Staff was at his quarters at Fort Myer, Virginia undisturbed by a message.
In Hawaii, a top admiral and an army general dined with other intelligence chiefs, and were given reports of special import but passed them off.
In Washington, President Roosevelt received a message from Japan, "This means war!" He decided not to contact his chiefs.
This illustrates how we can become busy with routine items, pleasures, and relaxation while the curtain of the greatest war drama in American history was about to rise.

What are our reasons for our unpreparedness for our Lord's return?

A clipping from the GR Press, May 25, 1980:
"It was such a nice day, such a sunny Sunday, who could resist a close-up peek at the mountain which has teased them for so long?
At 8:32 Pacific Daylight time, last Sunday morning (May 18) the mountain which so many came to see, unleashed a fury that the president of the US said made the moon look like a golf course.
It was the suddenness which took everyone by surprise. Ever since March 27,
the volcano rumbling and stewing stem, threatening to go. Scientists kept
saying that the end might be near, but they couldn't say when. It blew
suddenly, scorching blasts of air and gas which devastated more than 150 square
miles in moments.

"We tried to let people know that the hazards were and
nobody listened, the people went over, under, through and around every attempt
we made to keep them out. The bottom line is, nobody would listen to us."
32 reported missing.

Terrorists flew into the Twin Towers Sept. 11th 2001.
Thousand were killed, unsuspectingly.
Many met Jesus;
Many were unsaved. All were surprised!
What a surprise for the terrorists.
They though they would be in Heaven with 7 virgins.
Instead - they were facing God.

The Event Happened.
It need not have happened
But it did.
It should not have happened
It happened at a non suspecting moment.

Glad for those who turned off their alarm
Glad for those who were late in arriving
Glad for the lady who was fired from her job
Glad for those who were sick, etc.

But the Rapture is a SURE THING!
It WILL happen! It is Predicted, Promised, and Pictured in Scripture.
We are told, taught, commanded to watch,
Encouraged to prepare
Heaven's prepared for a prepared People

Will you be ready? Saved?

Will you be happy to meet Him?
Surely!!!
Will you be ashamed?

I am satisfied with Jesus
He has done so much for me

I am satisfied, I am satisfied
I am satisfied with Jesus
But the question comes to me
As I think of Calvary
Is my Savior satisfied with me?

In spite of the truth of this fact, we find ourselves working, planning and buying as though we were to be here for all eternity.
We have settled the Salvation question, so we know we are ready.
But say, if Christ should come to your house today – would you REALLY be ready?"

So, today September 11th 2010, I ask you to do two things.

1) Remember and honor those who's lives were given and taken so abruptly 9 years ago today in the name of American liberty and freedom

and

2) Remember and honor the One who gave His life 2000 years ago on a cross, so you could be forgiven and live with him forever.

At my grandfather's funeral we used this verse to describe his life.

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the
faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also
to all who have longed for his appearing." 2 Timothy 4:7-8

As it struck me several times throughout the days after his death that my grandfather was truly a great and godly man, that his life had an eternal effect on a great many people and that this verse described him almost perfectly, it also struck me that if I were to die tomorrow, I don't think I would live up to this verse, especially that first part. That bothered me. And I resolved to live my life in a way that is worthy of that crown that is waiting for me. Now, I admit that I’ve failed a whole bunch since then, but I’m not giving up.

I challenge you today, to examine yourself and ask yourself are you living a life that brings HONOR to God? And make today the day that you start to ready yourself for when Christ comes again or calls you home.

Blooming Morning Mercies

For my birthday, I was given some gladioli. They’re beautiful, tall flowers, with many buds. The most beautiful part about them though is that only a couple buds blossom at a time. Now, that might seem like a downside. It would seem that a flower with so many buds would be more beautiful if all the buds blossomed at once, but that’s not true of this flower. This flower has around eight to ten buds. The first one is seated about halfway up the long stem and one by one they assemble up to the top of the stem.
Now, here’s where the exciting part comes in. When the plant first blossoms, only the flower on the very bottom comes out from the bud, it lasts for one glorious day. Then the next day it wilts and you must pluck it off.
BUT!
That is not the end for our beautiful flower! While the bud from the first day wilts, the next bud, the one directly above it is blossoming! This continues until all the buds have blossomed!

I’ve been greatly enjoying waking up each morning to see a new little beauty that has come out of its bud and I’ve even enjoyed picking off the dead blooms and throwing them away. And as I’ve been doing all this it struck me that these flowers are much like how our Christian lives should look.

In Ephesians 4:22-24 it says,

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Just like the gladiolus, everyday in our lives we are to take off the old and put on the new.
Everyday as we allow God to work in our lives, as we spend time in His Word, as we spend time talking and listening to Him, and following Him, He molds us to be more like Him. He reveals our sinfulness, and forgives us, so that we can purge ourselves of our old nature, and He shows us how to follow Him and how to be made new and holy.

But that’s not the only way the gladioli are like our Christian life.
In Lamentations 3:22-23 it says,

“Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His mercy never fails. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness”

When we wake up every morning God has new mercies for us.
Isn’t that amazing! Just like when I wake up each morning a new flower has bloomed!
God never runs out of mercy and grace for us. We can never mess up too big for Him to forgive. He always loves us and always be there with a new morning full of new mercies!
Mercy that allows us to have salvation, Mercy that allows us to have a relationship with Christ, Mercy that allows us to be free from sin, Mercy that allows us to have God’s Word and read it, Mercy that allows us to live a joy-filled life no matter the circumstance.

So, tomorrow when you wake up, or even right now, remember God’s great mercy and take time to be with Him, thank Him, and let Him show you how you can daily take off the old and put on the new. Just like the beautiful blossoms on my gladiolus.

2 Corinthians 5:17

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

Something I Don't Deserve.

This is something i wrote around Easter before i started this blog. I thought I'd share it here =)



Do you ever feel like you're not getting what you deserve?
Or how about, do you ever feel like you're getting something you don't deserve?

I feel like that a lot.
Most of the time it's that second feeling and I really don't want what I’m getting.
It's pretty annoying to take the blame for something you don't deserve. It's very frustrating and it usually makes me pretty mad. Then I waste a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, getting angry, and complaining.

But sometimes when you get something you don't deserve, it's a fun thing. Sometimes you deserve something horrible, something you really don't want. Then suddenly, that horrible thing you were dreading is gone. Without warning, you're given something you don't deserve, something good. Something you actually want.
That is pretty awesome when it happens. But even then, I usually spend much more time and thought thinking about the bad things that happen rather then the good things.

The other day was one of those times. I had just gotten something bad that I didn't think I deserved. I was angry and upset and I was letting it severely affect my attitude and my ability to show love.

Then something happened.

A thought suddenly came into my head.

"Jesus didn't get what He deserved"

I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Jesus didn't get what He deserved"

Jesus was whipped, He didn't deserve it. Jesus hung on a cross, He didn't deserve it.
Jesus was spit on, hated, bruised, beaten, mocked.
Jesus died for MY SINS. MINE. He didn't deserve that, I did.
Jesus took what I deserved.
Jesus paid my debt and then GAVE me something I didn't deserve.
Instead of getting what I deserved, I was given a gift of a new life, forgiveness, eternal life in heaven and a relationship with GOD.

Here I was, being a total brat because I felt that I was being treated unjustly, while forgetting that Jesus truly HAD been treated unjustly, for me. What right did I have to complain and cry and hate?

Jesus had suffered and died, but he still loved the criminals hanging beside Him. He still loved the men who had whipped him and nailed spikes through His hands. He still loved the people who spit and jeered at Him. He still loved me. Me, a wretch. Me, who was being a complete brat. Me, who thought I had a right to be angry because life was being fair to me. Me. He still loved me.

Jesus had been treated with the greatest injustice of all so I could have grace, and I wasn't willing to show grace to those around me. Jesus loves those who despised Him and I couldn't love those who love me.

When Jesus was hanging on that cross, taking my punishment, he said "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"
Jesus had forgiven me. He forgave me for being a brat. He forgave me and he loved me, even when I was unlovable. Furthermore, He was willing to help me do the same with those around me. What a gift!

Easter is in three days. In three days we will celebrate the fact Jesus took something He didn’t deserve so he could give us something we don’t deserve.
This Easter this fact is especially evident to me and I hope that this Easter I will be truly grateful for that, and that I will be able to take the love and grace God has shown me and give it to those around me.

Jesus did many things here on earth so that we would have someone to look to, so that we would have someone to imitate. Taking things we don't deserve and giving love and grace to those who don't deserve it is one thing Jesus did and it’s one way we can imitate Christ.
How will you imitate Him this Easter?

Ephesians 5:1
“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2and
live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a
fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

What's Your Focus?

Hold your finger about 12 inches away from your face. 1) Focus on it. 2) Now, focus on whatever is behind it. (I’m guessing it’s your computer screen ;)
How’d does God look to you right now? View 1 or View 2? What are you focused on?

What exactly does it mean to be focused on God?

Does it mean to read your Bible everyday?
or
To pray for hours or …even all the time?
or
To walk around giving out tracts?
or
To tell all your friends, “God bless you!”?
or
To never watch any TV or to never get on FB or to never read any secular books or to never listen to any secular music or to never go anywhere besides church and the grocery store (and only then when absolutely necessary)?

Well, maybe… but I kinda doubt it.
I mean, most of those things are great and all (and a bit exaggerated ;), but…

To be focused on God is different than that I think.
Many people might think that in order to focus on God they have to withdraw from everything else… and I’m not saying that’s not good to do every once in awhile, but I think that we are called to live lives that are focused on God, IN THE WORLD, (I know, scary, right?)

It’s hard to focus on God when there are things all around that can distract us. I should know, I’m very, very, VERY easily distracted. I mean, you put a mirror in the same room as me and I’m a goner!
Jkjk!
But seriously, it’s hard to stay focused on God and not let the focus shift to ourselves and what we want.

Try looking at your finger again. Focus on it.

Notice anything about the things around your finger when you’re focused on it?

They become blurry.

That’s how our lives are supposed to work. We’re supposed to become so focused on God that everything else in life, ourselves included, become a blur to us. They don’t matter, nothing else matters besides following God and bringing glory to Him. I repeat, bringing glory to Him. That, right there, is our purpose, our focus in life.

Do you remember what happened at the beginning, when I had you do number 2?
Try it again. Hold up you finger, but focus on whatever’s behind it.
What happened?

Your finger should have become blurry and hard to distinguish.

This is what happens to our view of God in our lives and our understanding of His will when we focus on things besides bringing glory to Him with our lives. It especially happens when we focus on bringing glory to ourselves with our lives.

In John 9 it says this,

“1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me.”

God does his work to bring glory to Himself through the bad things in life.
We are also to do His work to bring glory to Him, through our lives and through our weaknesses as long as there are days.

So, what does it mean to have your life focused on God?
Well, in my humble opinion, it is this:
To live our lives in a way that we concentrate on doing everything to bring glory to God.


So, let me ask you a question.

Where’s your focus?


Which view do you have?
1 or 2?


1) Can you clearly see God in your life? Or is He made blurry by other things?

2) How can you bring your life’s focus to God?

3) How can you glorify God with your life?

4) How are you not glorifying God and instead bringing glory to yourself with your life?



These are questions you need to answer for yourself, but I’m gonna share my answers with you.



1) No, not really. He’s slowly becoming clearer and clearer, but I often let other things, my own selfish desires, guys, media, friends, sinful thoughts, etc… become my focus and cloud my mind and view of God’s working.

2) Read my Bible consistently. Take time separated from things that distract me from Him to talk to Him and to just think… to just be still. To daily surrender my life to Him and His will.

3) Respect and love my family. Be a good steward. Do everything without complaining. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Put others ahead of myself. Share Christ’s light with others. Revel in God’s joy and hope.

4) By being selfish. By drawing undue attention to myself. By allowing my sinful desires to control my actions. By using my mouth in negative ways.



They’re not easy questions to answer are they?
And the answers aren’t usually easy things to deal with and change. But I strongly encourage you to answer the questions for yourself and then, go to God with them. He’ll help you. He’ll take your heart in what ever condition it’s in and mold it, if you are truly willing to surrender it to Him and His glory.

So. Here’s the big Q. Are you ready to Focus?