I asked a young adult recently what her biggest struggle was in life. She answered, "Focus." But it's not just her. We ALL struggle with maintaining focus.
Our lack of focus all began in a garden a long, long time ago.
"15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
"3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths." - Genesis 2:15-17 and Genesis 3:1-7
Something happened between verse three and verse six. It changed the course of all mankind. Eve lost her focus.
God commanded one thing - not to eat "the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden ". . . neither shall you touch it."
Eve lost her focus on God and His commands. She turned away from God. She was distracted by listening to Satan's words instead of God's. And that's ALWAYS where things begin to go bad.
We are no different than Adam and Eve. We become easily distracted when we think of ourselves and our selfish desires. Let me give you some examples.
A young guy is going out on a date with a beautiful woman. He arrives at her apartment to pick her up. He knocks on the door and it opens. Wow!! She is wearing a tight-fitting dress with a very low neckline. Opening the door a little wider she asks, "Would you like to come in for a bit?" Yeah, that guy's dead. He's lost his focus . . . or has he?
A woman is out on a date with a really nice, handsome young man. She really likes him and knows he's been seeing other women so she decides to show him the extent of HER love for him and she starts to unbutton her shirt. She's dead and the guy's dead. When we focus on worldly things we end up becoming a part of it. But scripture tells us we are to be "in the world but not OF the world" (Romans 12:2).
If we actually died each time we committed a sin there would be nobody left on the entire planet. From Adam right on down the line, we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We have ALL lost our focus, our purpose, our reason for living - God.
There is one God, and we are not it. The biggest problem with this country is that God is systematically being removed from everything. Ironically, God is the only one who can fix this country . . . and we're removing Him from power. Repentance is in order in this country, but we won't repent. We have lost our focus . . . and have become blind to sin.
Heavenly Father, we have fallen so far as a country. We are sacrificing our babies on the altar of convenience, we are turning our backs on our Savior and King. The very cure we are in such desperate need of is being thrown our with the trash. Refine us, break us to the point of repentance. Hear our prayers then and have mercy. We have lost our focus, God. Help us return that focus to You. It is in your merciful name we pray.
Squirrel! - Up
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