With 2the New Year rapidly approaching we often begin to ask ourselves what we want to change in our lives in the year to come. As I think about this I wanted to encourage my friends and family to embrace a new focus for the New Year.
So often our life gets caught up in our own little lives that we lose sight of the bigger picture of life. So times we even find ourselves detracted by all the good things we are doing that we fail to see the depth of the vision that God has put in our lives.
In Luke 4:38-44 we find the great illustration in the life of Jesus about the importance of gaining a new focus in our lives. Let's read this passage:
Then He got up and left the synagogue, and entered Simon's home Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Him to help her.
And standing over her, He rebuked the fever, and it left her; and she immediately got up and waited on them.
While the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them.
Demons also were coming out of many, shouting, "You are the Son of God!" But rebuking them, He would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ.
When day came, Jesus left and went to a secluded place; and the crowds were searching for Him, and came to Him and tried to keep Him from going away from them.
But He said to them, "I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose."
So He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
What I love about this story in scripture is that Jesus illustrates the ease in which someone can be caught up in the good work they are doing while missing the best that God has called them too. (Not that it happened to Jesus but we can see the point in this narrative.)
When I read this account from Jesus' life it would be very easy to focus in on all the people who Jesus is helping. As the sun was setting people began to line up to bring Jesus all those who needed to encounter the life changing Christ. He healed the sick, cured the diseased, and cast out demonic spirits. All of these thing were good things and Jesus could have spent the rest of His life in that home serving the people brought to Him day and night and would have been seen as a great man of God who cared about all people.
However, the story doesn't end like that. We read that while it was still dark out Jesus got up early and went to a solitary place to pray. When the other people woke up the began to look for Him. There was so many people that needed His help. When Peter found Jesus he tried to persuade Jesus to coming back to the house but after spending time with God, Jesus has to refocus His energy. "But He said to them, "I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose."
Jesus knew that if He stayed there that the true purpose of His mission would never be accomplished. This year we need to ask the serious question about our focus. Following God's plan for your life will not always be easy. In fact it may require us sacrificing good things in our lives but in the end we can state like Paul, "More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;" ~Philippians 3:8-10
May you gain a New Focus for the New Year as you grow deeper in your relationship to God in this New Year.
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