Instructing and encouraging you to live your life as a disciple of Jesus
There’s a wise adage that says, “What has your attention has you”. So the question is really obvious; what has your attention today? If our focus is anywhere other than on Jesus Christ, we are captured by something other than Him. Satan is a master of distraction. Since the dawn of time he has been parading a feast of temptation before our eyes (Genesis 3:1-6). He doesn’t care if you ever go his way; he’s content to just keep your eyes off of Jesus. We make it too easy for him.
These days it seems to be the rage to write articles espousing the “The 3 Keys to This” or the “7 Steps to That”. Everyone seems to be looking for a quick fix or at least some concrete guidance to getting to where they want to be. It made me ponder what I might consider to be the keys to following Christ. If I could boil it all down to a few concepts, what would they be? As I mulled it over, I kept coming back to a single thought: think less about yourself. Perhaps following Jesus really is that simple.
We become what we allow ourselves to consume. We become like those with whom we surround ourselves, and those we seek to emulate. Whether or not something influences us is not the correct question. Each of us is being influenced every day by something or someone. The only question we then have to ask ourselves is who or what is doing the influencing. Unless we are intentional about what we choose to allow into our hearts and minds, we will slip into a pattern of living that is not consistent with the person Christ created us to be.
Do you ever look at the lives of fellow Christ followers and marvel at what they’re doing for God? You can get into a form of hero worship when you see the impact others are having for the Kingdom. It’s easy to rejoice over the glory God is receiving through their ministry, but at the same time I sometimes get a gnawing in my soul that says I should be doing more. Of course this is often accompanied by the niggling thoughts that I could never do what they do. Forget “I can do all things through Christ” (Philippians 4:13). Apparently, that verse is for a select few according to my thinking in that moment.
We hinder our ability to live as fully devoted followers of Christ when we allow sin to linger in our lives. We were created in God’s image, to live holy and obedient lives that will glorify our Creator. Every time we sin we are engaging in behavior that is diametrically opposed to who we are. We are spiritual beings living life in a physical body. The more we feed the physical rather than the spiritual, the less we look like Jesus. Our focus must be on nourishing the soul. This is accomplished only by pursuing those things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and morally excellent (Philippians 4:8). In other words, we feed our souls by pursuing Jesus.