Praise the Lord Church, today's Church Service is all about staying focused on Jesus.
Our first scripture is James chapter 1 verses 2 through 4 in the ERV version.
It says, My brothers and sisters, you will have many kinds of trouble.
But this gives you a reason to be very happy.
You know that when your faith is tested, you will learn to be patient in suffering.
If you let that patience work in you, the end result will be good.
You will be mature and complete.
You will be all that God wants you to be.
Distractions are inevitable, but we can choose to stay focused on Jesus.
When we let distractions interfere with our relationship with God, we are stagnating our
faith.
We stop prioritizing Jesus and find other stuff to fill our time.
Also, distractions can come in ways we don't expect.
Sometimes we can be so busy, even doing good stuff or doing the Lord's work even, that
we forget to spend time with God.
When we are weak, we will give in to distraction, but when we are strong, we will do what is
right.
Our second scripture is 1 Peter 5 verse 8 in the NLT version.
It says, Stay alert, watch out for your great enemy, the devil.
He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
Wow.
Now, when we first read the scripture, it might sound a little bit scary, but wait, remember
that God is all powerful.
And when we choose to activate our faith, we can stand firm in Jesus and we don't yield
to the distractions.
But remember this, the enemy can use other people as a less suspecting hindrance.
If our inner circle of friends isn't leading us to Christ, then they aren't from Christ.
And our thoughts will reveal who or what we prioritize and give our full attention to.
If we are staying focused on God, we will become more like Him.
But if we are fixing our focus on people, we will want to become more like them.
And that's one way we can slowly start to drift away from Jesus is when we start looking
to others as our example, rather than looking to Jesus as our example.
Our last scripture today is Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 in the ESV version.
It says, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing to the division of the soul and of the spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning
the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
God knows our deepest intentions.
Yes, He knows us better than we know ourselves.
And sometimes our deepest thoughts can be, we are more eager to do other things than
to spend time with Jesus.
For example, a hobby.
On the outside, it looks fine, but when our first thought when we get up in the morning
is to spend time playing an instrument or doing a sport or spending time with our friends,
then we quickly have an idol.
And idols can come out of nowhere.
They are our biggest distractions when something takes the place of God in our lives.
When this happens though, we should fast from distractions to seek God in prayer and through
His word.
And what is a fast?
You may ask, well, firstly, a fast is when we give up something to focus on something
else.
In this case, we will give up our distraction in order to focus on Jesus.
You don't always have to fast from food, but we can fast from social media, we can fast
from something that distracts us, we can fast from gains.
And when we do this, we will recenter our minds and our lives back on Jesus.
Also, when we spend time with God, He will show us the things that have been distracting
us.
Remember how I just talked about fasting?
Well, when you fast, you'll spend more time with Jesus in prayer, spend more time reading
His word and getting Christian influences.
And when we spend more time with Him in prayer for Him to talk to us, He will show us the
things that we need to give to Him and the things that have been distracting us.
He knows us better than we know ourselves and He has infinite wisdom, not us, because
we only have human brains, but He knows everything about everything.
Our points today are one.
Staying focused on Jesus comes down to a choice.
We can choose whether we'll yield to the temptation and the distraction or we will
stand strong in our faith, keeping our focus on Jesus.
Should not be let astray.
Two.
Be watchful because the devil will try to distract us in unsuspecting ways.
Even though it might seem innocent or like it's not bad at all, the devil will use that
once he sees that he can get a foothold in our lives.
And three, fasting from distractions is a great way to recenter ourselves back to Jesus.
So if you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, then this message will help
you.
But if you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, then I invite you to give
your heart to the Lord today.
To receive Him into your heart, go to Romans 10, 9 through 10.
It says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that
God has erased him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation.
If you set this prayer with sincerity, you are saved and now have eternal life with Jesus.
You are saved from all your sins, past, present, and future sins you may commit.
This truth is not of repastice in any time.
Instead, Jesus gives you power over all wrong choices and empowers you to spread the gospel
to others.
You are saved forever and your name is written in the book of life.