Focus

"Ethan finally finds Julia, tied to a chair, but before he can free her, Davian activates the bomb in Ethan's head. The result is an incapacitating noise in Ethan's head which hinders his ability to defend himself. Nonetheless, Ethan is able to best Davian in a savage fist fight - the fight spills into the street, and Davian is killed by oncoming traffic- and then Ethan frees Julia." - wikipedia

Some of you may have recognized the above picture as Tom Cruise, fewer of you will have recognized him as playing Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible III. This is the image that comes to mind when I hear the word "focus" - Ethan Hunt overcome with intense pain and a desire to give in but won't because of love.

So where am I going with this?

Well, focus is something that must be learned by the Christian to conquer sin in his life. Focus enables us to, when we are tempted by sin, stop and think about the decision we're going to make. When we focus, we are momentarily escaping our current emotions and desires to do what we want to do, and instead thinking about what we believe. It's that simple. But it's difficult because our emotions and desires to sin are so strong.

As Christians, we still have an old nature - a part of us that still wants to sin. When we want to sin, all we may think about is fulfilling what we want at that moment. But if we stop and focus on what we believe, overcoming that sin becomes possible.

How exactly can we do this? Here's an illustration

Suppose a Christian is tempted to seek revenge on a person. He must make one of two decisions: To seek revenge or leave vengeance to God. If he chose the path of revenge, why did he? What were his reasons? It's because he wanted to satisfy his own desire.

Now contrast that response to this one

What if the Christian leaves vengeance to God - why didn't he seek revenge? It's because he was convicted of his beliefs. The belief that for what Christ did for him on the cross, he'd love Him back by obedience to His commands.

So what is the core difference between these two decisions? Why is one chosen over the other?

The difference is a failure to focus or to choose to focus. To seek revenge is to think only of our own sinful desires - to ignore, and suppress what we believe about Christ - to choose to not focus.

So what about unbelievers? Understand that unbelievers don't always make morally wrong choices, they can choose to focus and do something that is morally right. But when they focus, it's not on God! Unbelievers don't have a conviction about God, they don't have a love for him. But that's what counts! (1 Corinthians 13:1-3) God looks at the heart - the motive.

In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve failed to focus. And we're still doing it today. Both Adam and Eve knew that God had told them not to eat of the tree "in the midst of the garden", but they suppressed that knowledge and were blinded by their own desires (Genesis 3:6). They weren't focusing on their beliefs about God, they were focusing on their own desires at that moment.

If the Christian holds as a conviction that Jesus Christ died for his sins by taking the penalty of sin on himself, then we realize that without Christ we would have no hope. And if there is no hope, than there is no reason to obey. But there is hope for those who trust in Christ! He has given us every good thing we will ever have, and for that we obey him out of love. So love Christ by obeying Him through focusing on what he's done for us!

In conclusion, let's sum up what it means to focus. Focus is a form of love. It's a mindset to give up what we temporarily want for what God wants for us because we value God more than ourselves - And He's given us every reason to believe that. See 1 John 4:19