What if we stared at God every moment of our day? The Bible tells us we should fix our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2), but how often do we make a conscious effort to do that? More importantly, what does that look like in real life? I’ve recently been trying to work this out for myself. The key is to first get a proper mental image of God. Check out Revelation 4:8-11, where it describes angels who do nothing but praise God, all day. They are so consumed with His beauty that they can do nothing else. God is the perfection of all that is good. He is perfect and unconditional love, and is constantly in pursuit of you, reaching out to you. Look at Isaiah 6:3-5, where the prophet feels ruined just from looking at the beauty of God. Keep that picture of God at the forefront of your mind.
Daily Life
Act on What You Know
I love to learn. There is rarely a moment of the day when I don’t have a book in my hand or at least within arm’s reach. We have access to so much information in our world that you could literally spend your entire lifetime gaining valuable knowledge. While that’s great – and even enjoyable to those like me – it never amounts to anything if we don’t apply what we learn and do something useful with all of that information. This is perhaps no more prevalent than in our churches today. We have so many opportunities to learn more about Jesus, but unless we move out of the building and put into action what we have learned, it won’t account for anything when we meet God.
Your Greatest Achievement
What is the greatest achievement you can think of in life? If you could achieve your dreams, what would they be? How do you define success? Think of the biggest goal you can imagine. Dare to dream your biggest dream. Now think what it will feel like if we live our life in such a way that when we meet Jesus He says to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23). Wouldn’t your wildest dreams, all of your greatest achievements combined, pale in comparison to that one conversation?
Planning for Eternity
Francis Chan said “People accuse me of going overboard in preparing for my first ten million years in eternity. In my opinion, people go overboard in worrying about their last ten years on earth.” If you’re like me and pretty much every other Christ-follower I know, that statement should feel like a punch in the gut. It should hurt because we know he’s right. We live in such a backwards way, putting our own selfish wants and desires ahead of pursuing the mission God has given to us. While we wring our hands over our 401(k)’s and obsess over how we will spend our retirement, we give precious little thought to preparing to spend eternity with God.
Fearing God
Satan loves to fill our minds with doubts and fears. He reminds us of our perceived shortcomings and failures. If we listen long enough, these thoughts become debilitating and prevent us from carrying out the mission of Christ. Too often we fail to recognize Satan as the source of our destructive thought patterns. If we did, we wouldn’t lend them the credence that we do. The Bible tells us that Satan is “the accuser” (Revelation 12:10). Any time you have thoughts of not being good enough or you doubt your ability to accomplish something, those thoughts are from the devil himself. In the same way, when you are afraid, those feelings too are from Satan. God is one hundred percent love, and there is no fear in love (1 John 4:18).