You know, there is a lot of the world around us to enjoy. But there is also a lot of world around us that we should be mindful of not enjoying. One of the most important functions of our bodies is that of sight. Sight can be a wonderful thing for us to enjoy. Looking all the splendor and glory of our God around us, seeing loved ones and friends, exploring all the "sights" around us. But there is another part to sight that we should be mindful of, that of our wants and desires.
"Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you." Proverbs 4:25 TNIV.
Much can be said about where we focus our lives, especially for those of us in the faith. Last post I talked about our heart, or inner self. Continuing on that we look at one of the ways we bring about change to our heart, whether good or bad. One of the Ten Commandments given to Moses from God deals with this: Exodus chapter 20 verse 17 we read, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
Webster's dictionary definition of covet is to have a strong desire to posses something that belongs to someone else. As we are born and grow into adulthood, we are constantly changed by where we fix our gaze. That is, what we are trained to want out of life. Many influences are responsible for training us up and most of those influences have nothing but the world in mind. One of my favorite sayings of old is, "Take what you want, when you want, from whomever you want." Another one is, "Generations are being prepared to get everything they can the world has to offer, no matter who has it." The unfortunate thing is that many people, including us, believe this very thing, even though some of us might not realize it.
We are groomed from almost the time of birth to care about only ourselves. We hear so much about self-worth, self-esteem, self-sacrifice, self, self, self, self. This corrupts our minds and out hearts. When asked who was his neighbor, Jesus answered that all around Him were His neighbors. We see things that others have, that others can do, and it does something to us. We change jobs to make more money, we take loans out for hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend the best universities thinking that these will make us better people, we try and try to get others to notice how good we are, how powerful we are, all because we want to be better than everyone else. I like the story of the two men that lived next to each other and every time one of them upgraded something, the other tried to out do him. Ridiculous!
Jesus tells us to fix our eyes directly before us. We need to be mindful of where we are going and not focus ourselves on worthless things! Do you absolutely have to make 60,000 a year? If you cut things out of your life, how much would you really need to live on? You would be surprised if I told you that the answer is almost nothing! Our lives should be focused on the path God has laid out for us. Don't know what that is yet? Give it time and God will make it clear to you. Our gaze should be fixed on our Lord, and His Word. Letting Him guide us and instruct us in the way in which we should go. Money is only one of many things we tend to fix our gaze. There is power and things and people that we focus on, not just money.
If we follow the commands of God and do what He says, like abiding in Him, studying His Word, allowing Him to live through us, the things we fix our gaze on would start to change. Our lives would take on new meaning! God tells us to look straight ahead, meaning that we should not allow ourselves to stray from the path that He has drawn out for us. We all can know what that is if we would only focus ourselves on Him and His Word. More often than not, people will say that they need to do this or that first, or they have this or that problem. I am going to be bold in saying, these are all excuses!!! We need to stop making excuses for not being obedient children and start listening to our Father in heaven as only He knows what is best for our lives!
Do you want to start enjoying life to the fullest? Well, be careful little eyes what you see!
Harold Trent
"Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you." Proverbs 4:25 TNIV.
Much can be said about where we focus our lives, especially for those of us in the faith. Last post I talked about our heart, or inner self. Continuing on that we look at one of the ways we bring about change to our heart, whether good or bad. One of the Ten Commandments given to Moses from God deals with this: Exodus chapter 20 verse 17 we read, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
Webster's dictionary definition of covet is to have a strong desire to posses something that belongs to someone else. As we are born and grow into adulthood, we are constantly changed by where we fix our gaze. That is, what we are trained to want out of life. Many influences are responsible for training us up and most of those influences have nothing but the world in mind. One of my favorite sayings of old is, "Take what you want, when you want, from whomever you want." Another one is, "Generations are being prepared to get everything they can the world has to offer, no matter who has it." The unfortunate thing is that many people, including us, believe this very thing, even though some of us might not realize it.
We are groomed from almost the time of birth to care about only ourselves. We hear so much about self-worth, self-esteem, self-sacrifice, self, self, self, self. This corrupts our minds and out hearts. When asked who was his neighbor, Jesus answered that all around Him were His neighbors. We see things that others have, that others can do, and it does something to us. We change jobs to make more money, we take loans out for hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend the best universities thinking that these will make us better people, we try and try to get others to notice how good we are, how powerful we are, all because we want to be better than everyone else. I like the story of the two men that lived next to each other and every time one of them upgraded something, the other tried to out do him. Ridiculous!
Jesus tells us to fix our eyes directly before us. We need to be mindful of where we are going and not focus ourselves on worthless things! Do you absolutely have to make 60,000 a year? If you cut things out of your life, how much would you really need to live on? You would be surprised if I told you that the answer is almost nothing! Our lives should be focused on the path God has laid out for us. Don't know what that is yet? Give it time and God will make it clear to you. Our gaze should be fixed on our Lord, and His Word. Letting Him guide us and instruct us in the way in which we should go. Money is only one of many things we tend to fix our gaze. There is power and things and people that we focus on, not just money.
If we follow the commands of God and do what He says, like abiding in Him, studying His Word, allowing Him to live through us, the things we fix our gaze on would start to change. Our lives would take on new meaning! God tells us to look straight ahead, meaning that we should not allow ourselves to stray from the path that He has drawn out for us. We all can know what that is if we would only focus ourselves on Him and His Word. More often than not, people will say that they need to do this or that first, or they have this or that problem. I am going to be bold in saying, these are all excuses!!! We need to stop making excuses for not being obedient children and start listening to our Father in heaven as only He knows what is best for our lives!
Do you want to start enjoying life to the fullest? Well, be careful little eyes what you see!
Harold Trent
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