The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:22–24, KJV).
We all have a tendency to lose focus whether we like it or not in any given situation and environment. While there are issues with losing focus in our secular life, there is a greater danger in doing this in our spiritual lives. Scripture warns us not to lose our focus (Luke 14:28–30). We do not want to develop a reputation with people or with God as the one who always loses his/her focus!
Eliminate Distractions
Focus is about prioritizing work and eliminating distractions. Satan is a good distractor—he puts things in front of us and we too often take the bait. We also lose focus because we’ve never had personal buy-in to God’s Word or His kingdom. Other times, we lose our focus because we have a lack of clear goals for our walk with God. We never took the time to talk to Jesus to determine where He’s taking us.
Culture has trained us to live for today and not to plan and set goals. If we are going to keep our focus we need to finish the race (II Timothy 4:7) and we need to stand against distractions (Ephesians 6:13).
Focus on Jesus
If we are going to maintain a steady focus, we need to have unwavering faith (Matthew 21:21). Our faith walk comes from a clear understanding of what satisfies us. We need to be content in where we are in God (Philippians 4:11–13) and realize that we can keep our focus if we keep Jesus in the center of our life.
Matthew 6:22–24 tells us what we see will be our focus. If what we see is good, then our life will be full of goodness (and the reverse is true). When our focus is on Jesus, it will benefit everything in our life! We cannot focus on Jesus just a few times a week; our entire life must be focused on Him.
God is our maker and we are His workmanship (Ephesians 2:10), and therefore, God knows how we’re built (Psalm 103:14). If there’s something broken, you need to go back to the creator to fix it. If we’ve lost our focus, we need to go back to our Creator and ask Him what we need to do to regain our focus.
Seek the Kingdom
We lose focus because we’re too worried about everything in this life—distractions that God never intended for us to focus on. God tells us not to worry; He is going to take care of our every need (Matthew 6:25–33). If we stop focusing our hearts and minds where they shouldn’t be—on the “other” master keeping our focus away from God—we will have ever need taken care of. Jesus has one goal, and that goal is to save us! Instead of worrying, seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We need to get rid of all the other distractions and get a focus. That focus is Jesus!
Final Focus
We cannot become Jesus’s disciple until we give up everything that we are and focus on Him (Luke 14:33). Once we realize everything belongs to God, and relinquish the ownership we think we have, we will easily be able to re-focus on the final element of up-most importance in our life. Jesus.
