Fix Your Attention On God

June 19, 2019

Fix Your Attention On God

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Romans 12:2a

I believe one of the benchmark days in the life of a Christian is when we grasp the truth that the world's culture has told us a pack of lies about who God is, who we are and who our neighbor is, and that God in Christ Jesus is telling us the truth. When we come to this place, we can affirm Paul’s truth quoted above. In the second part to this verse, Paul asserted that when we let God transform the way we think, we will learn to know God’s will for us, which is good and pleasing and perfect. This language is very similar to how Paul expressed God continually working in our lives in his letter to the Philippians: “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:13).

Paul is affirming that Christians are the new people of God who are called to be a light unto the world. How do we let our light shine? By not copying the behavior and customs of this world, and allowing God to work within us to give us a new vision of what it means to live as the beloved people of God. Whether our go-to news channel is Fox or CNN, we all need to pause and ask, “What is God’s perspective?” I’m certain we will find the Biblical witness to be different, sometimes substantially different, than that of today’s pundits and political commentators.

My Takeaway: I believe Eugene Peterson beautifully expresses Paul’s teaching in Romans 12:1-2.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (The Message)

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.