Keep the focus where it needs to be

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The Great Adventure”

Our Bible verse for today: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.” Matthew 6:33 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Keep the focus where it needs to be”

This morning let’s continue our thinking from the last couple of days pertaining to walking worthy, and living simply and well. Matthew 6:25-34 is part of the famous “Sermon on the Mount”. In this part of His sermon Jesus was teaching about how we often allow the cares of life to worry us, distract us, and to get us off track with respect to practicing our faith and focusing on God.

The specific example He was using pertained to the essentials of life such as food, clothes, and shelter. In this lesson He teaches us not to obsess about such things but to instead, stay focused on honoring God and then trusting the rest to Him. (We still have a responsibility to work and to provide for ourselves. We should not expect God to just magically provide for us. This simply means we are not to obsess about such things.)

This was my wife Linda’s favorite passage during all the years we served in church ministry. We always served in small churches and at a small missionary agency, and often for small salaries. Linda was convinced that as long as we stayed focused on serving God and His people, the Lord would take care of our other needs (and He always did!)

Although the illustration Jesus used to teach this lesson pertained to the essentials of life, the larger lesson pertains to all of life – seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and everything else will fall into place in God’s time and in God’s way. That’s a life-lesson. Make God and His kingdom your primary focus and don’t obsess about the rest of it. Again, that doesn’t absolve us from personal responsibility, it just means we keep our primary focus where it needs to be.

This is the kind of thinking that eventually led me to adopt Proverbs 3:5-6 as my primary life-verse. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

This great adventure of living the Christian life focuses primarily on God and His kingdom. Everything else in life falls into place after that. Tomorrow we will consider one more example of how God makes this work in our lives.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

(If you like what you’re reading in these daily devotionals, and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00, in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

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