Regarding all this talk in the churches about focusing on Jesus Christ, I'd say I agree with the notion - any time we think about Christ, is good time, indeed. It's life-giving time.
However, I believe that in our focusing on Christ, we shouldn't leave out how Christ was and continues to be focused on us, to this day.
How WAS Jesus Christ focused on us? Well, for starters, He was already thinking of us before time and space were established. Darlene Zschech sings what was stated in Ephesians 1:4, in her perspective: 'Before the world began, (we) were on His mind.'..
..and while we could not take each and every singular evil event and explain the focus of Christ towards us in each of them in a way we would understand completely, we DO know that He was with Joshua before a great undertaking, He was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, He was with David as he avoided Saul... We DO know that He is with us, focused on us for us, in all things, even the most evil of situations.
How WAS Jesus Christ focused on us? In the fullness of time He came to us, born of a virgin, 100% God yet 100% man, focused to experience and to feel and to go through anything and everything we could go through as human beings, focused to relate to us in our level instead of looking down on us as a kid looks down on ants with a magnifying glass..
..and in what can be called a sheer demonstration of even more focus, He endured the greatest pains and torture, scourged, humiliated, and crucified - Jesus Christ, 100% God, 100% man, beaten, bloodied, and nailed to the cross - yet for nothing else but for us, fully focused on us, enduring the cross because we were the prize to win.
Oh, what a Savior we have, indeed! Out of focus He brought us back to how we were designed before the fall, raised as new creations filled with the Spirit that calls God our beloved Father, yet not because of anything we did or anything we could do, but because of Jesus Christ and His righteousness, His life and His life abundant fully infused and fully united with us.
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See, when we take verses like Philippians 1:21, where Paul says 'To live is Christ, and to die is gain', there will always be the tendency for us to focus on ourselves and to live trying to be like Christ, even saying that we were 100% focused on Christ... and yet, not focused on His character and His work but actually focused on ourselves and how to be like Him when that is clearly not the focus we ought to have.
We quote John the Baptist and we applaud people who say what he said in John 3:30, that we decrease, and Christ increases.. which may be okay, sure; but it's just that we're focusing on our decreasing.
What I'm trying to say here is that if we were to preach on focus on the Lord Jesus Christ, we simply cannot choose what we ought to focus on, as if His life was a lesson plan where we could pick and choose what we wanted in a given day; No, if we say that we should focus on Christ, this AUTOMATICALLY includes His focus on us which was established before we had the thought and capacity of focusing on Him!
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Let us enjoy Christ and all He has done... that's an order! Because we wouldn't be able to love the unlovable until we realize how He loved us with a perfect and everlasting love; Consequently, we wouldn't be able to love with such focus and thoughtfulness until we ourselves take in and keep taking in how He was so absolutely focused and filled with thoughts towards us!
Christ was focused on us and continues to be focused on us; He was free to focus on us, even as He walked with us in this reality and in this world, because He knew that despite His being 100% man, He was confident in His inseparable union with His Father..
We, consequently, are free from fear of thinking that God isn't with us because we don't feel it - Take note, Christ, while being surrounded by Lazarus' relatives, in an atmosphere devoid of joy and full of sorrow... even in this environment, Christ spoke, 'Father, I thank you because you hear me, and I know you always hear me..'
..immediately after this, He did not need to affirm Himself any further, focusing on Lazarus, speaking with authority, 'LAZARUS, COME FORTH!'
As we focus on how Christ was focused on us, we understand what it truly means to live, and the gain associated to when our earthly bodies fade.
Let us focus on Christ, for then we would realize how, as we have been set free from fear, we are free to focus, free to love... and to love truly, to live Christ.
Remember:
Focusing on Christ means focusing on His love for us.
As Christ is ALWAYS focused on us, so we are free of thinking He isn't focused on us.
As Christ is ALWAYS focused on us, so we are surely free to focus on others the same way.
In Christ, you are free from fear, free to love.
God bless you.
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email me at jibee@rocketmail.com.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift His countenance upon you and give you His Shalom. - Numbers 6:24-26