CONCENTRATION

I Was Just Thinking About – CONCENTRATION.

Several thoughts have occurred to me during the past few days. As I concluded my public sermons, I closed with Colossians 4:12 (NLT), “Epaphras, a member of your own fellowship and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. He always prays earnestly for you, asking God to make you strong and perfect, fully confident that you are following the whole will of God.”

I also thought of the words of the Puritan Pastor, Richard Baxter, who was known to have said: “I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” In that vein, his sermons and teaching were noted to have the compelling urgency to act upon the word now rather than at some more convenient day. In a day and time in which we live, there is demonstration of the obvious drift away from the things of God. An old Hymn captured that sense when the lyrics were written:

Drifting carelessly with the tide,
Drifting over the waters wide,
With no Captain your course to guide,
Drifting over life’s sea.

          Refrain:

Drifting, drifting, no port in sight,
Drifting far from the gospel light;
Lest you go down in the stormy night;
Drifting over life’s sea.

Choices are often made without any due concern for consequences. You see this in the absence of moral values with politicians and media people as they are accused of behavior from decades ago. This is also seen in the investigations of corrupted justice entities. Wherever one looks, it seems there is the presence on undeniable past history that is disappointing and causes a loss of confidence in the revealed double standard behavioral living.

In the midst of the disappointments and complex lifestyles, the person who has a reason for confidence and hope is the relationship of The One whose character and integrity is beyond reproach. In Hebrews 6:18-20, “…by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and steadfast. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus our fore-runner has entered on our behalf.” Don’t find yourself among those who are adrift, and without hope. May you desire and know where and with whom your soul is anchored, Jesus Christ.  

Prayerfully – consider these things with me.