Lenten Blog Series 2024: Week 7: Expectations from Staying Focused By: Pastor Lula Baker

 EXPECTATIONS FROM STAYING FOCUSED

WEEK SEVEN

Lenten Blog

Pastor Lula A. Baker

Psalm 53:2 ASV

God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek after God.

As we come to the close of this Lenten season, we have been compelled through thoughtful reflections and introspection to remain focused! Our struggle or wrestle becomes, what are we to focus on? What’s different now than it was centuries ago? When Jesus galvanized his band of disciples, the twelve, and the countless others who followed without titles or positions to internalize the mission and live it out in the community. Has the mission or dynamic changed? Have we lost sight of what we were created to do?? Draw sinners to repentance!!

They, like we, are charged to love GOD in totality: heart, mind, and strength. Love our neighbor and enemies like He has loved and given himself as a ransom for fallen humanity! As time approaches, we seem to major in the minors each year! We contemplate what we temporarily have given up and cannot wait to return to and what we will be given or granted for making good on those decisions! We minor in the majors; who will we draw towards the Savior by our light, or who will we stand with and hold space for amid the vicissitudes of this journey we call life? Are we biased, selective, near-sighted, or judgmental regarding who the lifeline should be thrown out to? The hymn writer Edward S. Ufford (1888) penned.

Throw out the lifeline across the dark wave; There’s a brother whom someone should save;

Somebody’s brother, O, who then will throw out the lifeline, his peril to share?

Refrain

Throw out the lifeline x 2

Someone is drifting away

Throw out the line x 2

Throw out the line life; someone is sinking today!!

Our primary focus should be being bonafide ambassadors who exemplify Christ on the earth as conduits, vessels of honor fit for the Master's use! Will lives be changed, cold hearts directed toward a patient, loving, and forgiving Father in heaven who deserves to live through us?

The foundation of our faith is anchored in the grace expressed in the sacrificial life, suffering, and death of a sinless servant! He exhibited impeccable, unshaken, resilient focus! Even in moments of temptation in the wilderness experience, he addresses the adversary by focusing on the WORD! Holy Week is a recap of events that changed the world for Christendom. It’s the pathway to understanding the externality and eternality of our salvation! We spend so much of our existence pursuing creature comforts, obtaining “things and acquiring stuff,” that what’s truly significant is lost in translation, and we go through motions, seasons, and transitions without true transformation!! We lost sight of who we are: spirit with a soul in a body! We should emulate the power of God’s Holy word as our Master did, which shifts the trajectory, changes outcomes, and controls narratives!

During his 39 months of sojourn in obscurity and into popularity, Jesus displays through mighty acts of healing and deliverance of humankind his focus was on completing the WILL of the Father. Repeatedly, he reminds his disciples and his accusers that he was committed to fulfilling his divine purpose, showing us that true authenticity and genuine faith were discovering and living out our callings, operating in our gifting to focus on what He did through word, will, and witness.

Jesus’ examples were consistently tailored to teach us through pictures, people, and in print the peace and contentment we can possess through our connection to him when we maintain a posture and steadfast focus! Focusing on what He places before us minimizes the possibilities of distractions, deterrents, disruptions, and detours. On the other hand, we better understand the purpose of delays and even the denials necessary to avoid aborting or even the self-sabotage we engage in, thinking we know what’s best!! Then we ponder why the frustration and anxiety exist regarding these dates on calendars where we are supposed to feel connected and should be continually elevated by our more profound appreciation of how His focus on his assignment prepares and propels us for our assignment!! We can use his testimony as a canopy for enhancing our WITNESS to depraved humanity, systemic corruption, and apathy we cannot comprehend that’s increasing daily before us. While we wither in the face of these challenges, Jesus continues to allow us the opportunity to influence and perpetuate change, hope, and confident trust that our witness is not in vain!!

I cannot help but pause in awe and reverence at the indescribable grace and mercy that GOD draws us to!! He is our irrefutable Champion in life, pain, and death, particularly in resurrection and ascension!! Approach this sacred season from crucifixion to Pentecost with unrelenting anticipation, expectation, new revelation, and FOCUS!!!

We ALREADY WON!!!

Blessing Multiplied in abundance!!