And life can be so busy, we can be consumed by the busyness of life, and it is important to be faithful and diligent with what God has called us to do, but there are times we need to take a step back from it all and refocus. We need to lift up our eyes from the things we are looking at and take a good look at what really matters.
And God came to Abraham after he had walked away from all he knew and said to him “Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.” (Genesis 13:14-15) And God knew Abraham needed fresh vision, fresh focus, that he needed to have his faith encouraged. There are times God will come to us and remind us to lift our eyes up and look!
In Genesis 15:5 God knew Abraham needed encouragement to continue to believe “He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars–if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”” (Genesis 15:5) God was getting Abraham to shift his focus again. When you shift your focus to the things God has promised, all of your energy and time get channeled in the right direction.
And God gave Abraham and his descendants a promised land, they were God’s chosen people. God used this holy nation to bring Christ into the world. And when Jesus came he had a challenge for his disciples concerning their promised land, he said “”Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest ‘? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.” (John 4:35)
I believe the harvest is the promised land for the Church and as we seek first the Kingdom of God, as we seek to build God’s Kingdom, as we seek to play our part in bringing in this great harvest, God will work miracles in our behalf. And you may work a busy job that requires a lot of you. I want to challenge you to take a step back from it all and look at the harvest that is ready. Ask God what part He has for you to play to gather it in.
I challenge you to get your focus off those things that don’t matter and get them on things that really do. Don’t focus on your differences with other believers, try to look at ways you can work with them to reach the unreached. God wants His Church to inherit the Kingdom, to inherit the nations and we should not settle for anything less.
And some of us have had God speak things to us that seem impossible. Like Abraham we are given assignments that are impossible without the intervention of God. I want to encourage you today to take some time to lift your eyes and remember God has something great for you to do. Take some time to focus on what God has promised and not and your current circumstances. I pray that as you do the Spirit of God will pour out fresh encouragement and strengthen you to continue to believe God.
As you refocus and shift your vision to things that really matter, God will honor that. He will begin to intervene, He will begin to move you in the direction of your dreams. Your vision will determine your direction. God will move every mountain in the way and lift up every valley to bring you to the place He has promised you.
People ask me ‘what is revival?’ and ‘what are the signs of true revival?’ I believe one of the things that happens in any true move of God, in any true revival is that God’s people get a change of focus to what really matters. Their hearts begin to be broken with what breaks the heart of God. The Spirit of God sweeps in and begins to convict us of our focus on things that really don’t matter.
When we begin to care about what God cares about revival happens. At the commencement of the Welsh revival, Evan Roberts prayer was that God would bend the Church. That God would give the Church the same concern for a lost world the He had. What a mighty revival took place as this supernatural weeping, repentance and brokenness began to grip the people of Wales.
I’m not saying God doesn’t want to bless you and take care of you, He does, but if we are focussed on what concerns Him, He will take care of what concerns us, it’s a trade, all of us for all of God. Allow the Spirit of God to change your focus today to what matters to God. I believe the condition of a lost and dying world concerns Him more than anything else.
Ultimately Abraham “was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:10) He was looking to what you and I would inherit, the unsaved of the nations and the Kingdom of God. Lets make a fresh determination today to lift up our eyes like the father of our faith Abraham, get our focus in the right place and inherit the land God has promised us.
If you enjoyed this word of encouragement, please feel free to sign up for future words of encouragement and updates of our ministry endeavors, by joining our mailing list on the top right hand side of this page.
