Forget Not The Present

I wrote yesterday about not getting too hung up in current events. The operative word is too. You cannot ignore this world either.

Thus Paul rightly persuades us to use this world as if not using it; and to buy goods with the same attitude as one sells them...Let this be our principle: that the use of God's gifts is not wrongly directed when it is referred to that end to which the Author himself created and destined them for us, since he created them for our good, not for our ruin.
John Calvin - Institutes of The Christian Religion: 3.10.1-2

To ignore what God has given us to work with in the world is almost as bad as ignoring God. Ignoring the world is as bad as obsessing about it. What God wants for us is focus and balance: focus on Him, balance in our doing His will in this world while we wait for Him to bring us to the next.

¹⁹"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,

²⁰teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Matthew 28:19-20 (NASB)

You cannot fulfill the Great Commission if you ignore the world; nor can you do it if you obsess on it.

So it is all about balance with the proper focus. Look at the Holy Trinity and how there is perfect balance and focus within that divine relationship.

Taking the steps we can take. Eyes on Jesus, listening to His words, hearing and seeing the world as He did. Going back to the future but not forgetting the present. And how can we do that?

⁸Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Hebrews 13:8 (NASB)

Balance and focus.

What Is Your Focus?

A lesson from earlier in the term keeps popping into my mind. I guess if this class had a test instead of just papers, this is one question I might get right.

Jesus' purpose was to focus attention on His Father, not to focus attention on Himself:

• We will never know more of the Father than we know of the Son
• We will never know more of the Son than we know of the Word
• Study the Word to know the Son to know the Father

So what is your focus. If Jesus did not focus on Himself, how can you make yourself the center of your life? We cannot be perfect as He was, but can we model this behavior on a daily basis?

Imagine how much better off the world would be if we could, all of us, even if just for one instance every day.