INSPIRATIONAL MESSAGE:  “Your Focus Needs Changing!”

One of the most important faith lessons I ever learned is how Christianity is not ultimately about me; it’s about him—Jesus Christ!  Christianity does not primarily show me a more effective way to live, or way to find greater peace, although either of those may result from saving faith.  Christianity lays out no plan or formula for earning one’s way into heaven.  In fact it maintains the exact opposite, that there is no possible way to earn one’s way into heaven by living a good life.  Genuine, orthodox Christianity always points me to Jesus Christ as my only Savior from sin, death, and the power of the devil.  Christ did his work on the cross to accomplish everything for my salvation.

Many Christians know this, although some have been led astray into thinking their relationship with God rest partly on what Christ has done and partly on what they themselves have done.  But from Bible passages like Ephesians 2:8-9 (“For it is by grace you have been saved through faith--and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, lest any man should boast”) we learn good works contribute nothing to our salvation. 

Yet even when we know this it is difficult not to focus on ourselves.  Christianity, as it is experienced by many folks, still revolves around the “I”, “me”, and the “my”.  How am I doing in my Christian walk?  What should I be doing differently or more of?  Is the Lord pleased or angry with me?  Is the Lord testing me?  Is He trying to get a message through to me?  Am I resisting His will?  How can my faith become stronger?  Is my salvation secure? 

Maybe the Lord can, at various times, use any or all of the above questions to get our attention and lead us into a deeper relationship with Himself.  Yet the fact remains, such an individualistic view warps our perspective of what God’s world and Jesus’ victory is all about.  It presumes God has nothing better to do than to sit in heaven worrying about me every day.  But this is foolish, because it’s not about me.  Or, put another way, I’m not the most important person in the world to God, and I shouldn’t even be the most important person to myself!  My interest in God’s plan of Redemption through Jesus should go beyond what effect it currently has on me, even if that effect is very personal and powerful. 

Or think about the question, “Where will you spend eternity?”  Is that the main thing that Christianity is about?  Me making sure that I will spend eternity in heaven?  If that’s so, then Jesus just becomes my means to an end! 

The fact is, while God loves me and calls me by name, He loves me for the sake of Christ.  There has been exactly one human life about which God has absolutely been enthralled—the life of Jesus Christ, His only Son.  One would certainly not be going too far to say that Jesus Christ is the whole point of human history, the primary reason for creation in the first place.  All the lives lived up until the birth of Christ have as their main purpose setting the stage for Christ’s appearance in our world.  All of the lives lived since have as their main purpose to demonstrate the redemptive power of this one, singular life.  God raised Jesus from the dead, not primarily to assure me that I will spend eternity in heaven, but primarily to glorify him and so he may reign over God’s kingdom forever—a kingdom in which I have been included by God’s grace. 

Is it hard to move ourselves out of the spotlight?  To recognize the world, whether we mean the vast universe or our own, little, personal world, doesn’t revolve around us?  Yes, it is hard, even impossible to do on our own.  But it is truly freeing when God works power in us so we are enabled by faith to take our eyes off ourselves and “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” (Heb. 12:2)  We need God to change our focus so that Christ, not ourselves, is in the center of our spiritual field of vision.