Encouragement,  Focusing on Truth,  Hebrews,  Resting In Peace,  spiritual warfare

God’s got you: Stay focused solely on Him for true purpose & meaning!

The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid? [Psalm 27: 1 NIV]

I don’t know about you, but I needed these words of truth and encouragement to start my day off and lead me in the right way. I find this passage so comforting as I meditate on it.

God is my light. He illuminates my path and helps me see what is around me and where I am going. He is my salvation. He is my lifeline, bringing me out of what was and into life and abundance. He saves me from sin and death and makes me alive in Him, on a new trajectory, one with abundance and goodness in store.

God is the stronghold of my life. He’s got me. He’s holding me in His hand. He’s not letting go, and He’s never giving up.

I don’t know who needs to hear that today, but God is never letting go of you and never giving up on you. He is graciously, mercifully, and kindly watching over, protecting, and caring for you. He’s got your back friend. And He’s got mine too.

The psalmist twice asks a question using whom, referring to a person, another human. “Of whom shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid?”

God doesn’t desire us to fear what another person will do or won’t do towards us. He doesn’t want us living our life for other people, to avoid negative consequences from them or to seek after positive affirmations from them either.

God wants us with our eyes and focus on Him alone. He is constant and never-changing. When we focus on Him, we stay steady in our life, in our identity, in our purpose. I desire that for sure!

It takes intentional continual focus and decisions to keep God the priority in our life and then the other priorities next, starting with your spouse if you are married and then your children if you have kids. For those who are not married, their focus is God alone and then how God would ask them to live their life among other people.

We are called to “fix our eyes on Jesus” as Hebrews 12:2 speaks of and in the previous verse, 12:1b, we are called to “…throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” We are to do this in response to Hebrews 11 which is considered the “Faith” chapter and chronicles briefly the faith of so many in the Old Testament and what they did through their faith in God. By seeing God’s hand at work in their lives and the faith they had to do amazing things for God, we can be emboldened and compelled forward in our own faith journey- to not allow sin or other issues to hold us back or hold us down from pursuing God’s plan for our life, persevering forward in spite of opposition and difficulty that comes our way.

We each have a life race set out before us and God has uniquely made each of us in such a way to carry out that purpose for His glory, if we will be willing to allow Him to use us and guide us.

Hebrews 12:2 says Jesus is the “pioneer and perfecter of faith.” Thank goodness we don’t have to do it on our own. He is the one working it out within us and helping us to grow our faith, if we are willing and will allow Him to.

Friend- will you let God do a work in you? Truly? Will you focus on His plans for your life and humbly submit to His ways? You are going to be blessed like crazy in the midst of it because you aren’t alone doing it. That doesn’t mean it will be easy. By no means. But God will be with you. Have we not just read He is the stronghold of our life and that He is our light and our salvation? He is.

In Hebrews 12, it goes on and encourages us to consider Jesus when He went to the cross and how He was able to endure such suffering and pain and opposition— because He focused on the joy set before Him— eternal life being available to anyone who will believe and accept His gift of salvation— when He conquered sin and death through His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave 3 days later. He conquered sin and death and made a way for us to have a relationship with God again and have eternal life— because of His great love for each of us. He is one who can be trusted. He has been through terrible suffering, and He loves us greatly. When we consider what He did, we can be encouraged to “not grow weary and lose heart” (Heb. 12:3b).

God has gone before us and is right there helping us as we focus our eyes on Jesus, who is the One who began our faith and will grow our faith as we lean into His ways and allow Him to change us and lead us.

I am thankful I’m not doing it on my own. God’s got me, and He is leading me forward. He can do the same for you too friend.

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