Focus: God – Our Creator and Sustainer

This morning as I prayed about our country, our church, my family and my day, one thing struck me over and over again. God is our Creator and Sustainer. In Sunday’s message I spoke about the power of Jesus to create and sustain and the compassion of Jesus to hold us close and hold us together. One of our key verses was:

Hebrews 4: 14 – 16
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (NIV)

The One Thing: Pay Attention Earlier in the book of Hebrews we are told by the writer to pay attention.

Hebrews 2:1
For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. (NASB)

What the writer to the Hebrews is saying here is that in the Christian life we must go on listening to God's Word in Jesus. He has already stated that Jesus is the word and that God spoke in the past through prophets, but in these days, He speaks to us by His Son. We must pay attention to all that God has spoken and in this days of economical challenge, uncertainty, personal challenge, family issues and more, we cannot treat hearing God as something occasional or casual. We cannot act as if we already know all we need to know, or that we have nothing to gain from listening to Jesus.
We are told to pay close attention to what we have heard. It is not just for those who are spiritually mature or for some who have a crisis in front of them. This is a word to all Christians: “we ought to give the more earnest heed…” (King James)
This is not an isolated command in the book of Hebrews. This concern to get the readers listen closely to God is repeated in various terms. Of all of them I love this one.

Hebrews 3:1Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the apostle and chief priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, (Young’s Literal Translation)

We are to consider Him. Focus on Him. Stay close to Him and keep Him in your thoughts. Learn more and more from Him every day—what He is like and what He says and the way He cares for you and how He sees the world.
Then again in Hebrews 12:1-2 (another of my favorites) "Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus." There it is again: "Fix your eyes on Jesus." Consider Jesus! Listen to Jesus!
Of all the things you are facing right now, would you focus on God as your creator and sustainer? Would you look to Him so that you do not drift? When pressures come, when uncertainty hits and when the enemy of right and light comes and steps into his tactics, we are faced with the potential of drifting away.
The Christian life is first and foremost a life of contemplation—listening to Jesus, considering Jesus, fixing the eyes of the heart on Jesus. Everything else in the Christian life grows out of this. Without this the Christian life is simply unlivable. – John Piper
My wholehearted encouragement to you is to focus on the Lord. I believe that is a timely word for all of us and the very thing I will be doing. To consider my Creator and open my heart and mind full to my Sustainer. Will you do the same? How could we not want to pay attention to Him, His truth, Jesus the Word and consider Him and fix our eyes on him!
Focusing better,
Pastor Bernie