Keeping a Right Focus

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Greetings;

Blessings to you all in the midst of your various situations with restraint, challenge, and even confinement for some of you due to the Coronavirus situation. I pray you are all safe, shielded, and healed should you be in the midst of recovery. I have to say, in the midst of the challenge of closed doors and restricted gatherings, it is great to see people reaching out to one another in the social internet. It is great to see all the various attempts to connect with others with inspiration, encouragement, care and concern. A lot of Christ centered messages and exhortations are being given. Yesterday Alife went totally live with Pastors Jonathan and Danie being in quarantine for a couple weeks upon returning from overseas. I believe it is a time to sharpen our abilities to intentionally connect in a time of required social distancing. There is no distance in the Spirit, Paul the apostle testified of that from his place of confinement in prison. What the enemy intends for evil, God turns for good and does amazingly good things. In the midst of this storm, we must keep our focus on Christ, the life of Christ, and giving the love of Christ to one another and others.

We must keep our childlikeness in the midst of serious times. We must never forget that we have a Father who loves us and that all of our shortcomings are forgiven in Him. He has forgiven us of our sins and His love for us never wavers. He also wants us to rise above ever circumstance and challenge in our lives as overcomers by God’s grace. We must believe God’s word, and His specific words to our hearts that testify of the character, nature, way, power, and authority of all that God is. We must be strong in His Spirit and His word. This is the testimony of sons and daughters of God! As little children, we overcome because of the blood of the Lamb. As young men and women we overcome by the word of our own testimony in Him! We also overcome by loving not our own lives, even unto death. This is time to rise up as fathers and mothers and live our lives for the sake of others.

1 John 2:12 I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake. 13 I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father. 14 I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one.

To be children of heart, overcomers in our souls, and givers of life to others through our lives is going to require a heart-to-heart connection with God in all things. The connection of the core of our being to God is the true source of vision in our lives. Our spirits joined to the Spirit of God gives us proper vision. This is the source of faith! It is the place of hearing God and hearing God is the secret to true sight. Vision doesn’t come from our souls; it comes from our spirit joined to God’s Spirit in all things. Our natural eyes are the windows of our souls, not the doors. The door to our souls comes by the gate of heaven within. That gate is the connection of our spirits to the Spirit of God. At all times, and especially in difficult times, we must let our connection with God in our hearts be the true light of our vision and path. What we are looking at will determine where we will end up tomorrow.

Matthew 6:22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

If our focus is on trouble, that trouble will determine our path to tomorrow. If our focus is on worldly news, worldly news will determine our future. If our focus is people, people will be the strength of our path. God wants us to become who we are meant to be, even in difficult times. We are meant to be expressions of God’s likeness and image in our world. Jesus set our path as a man by manifesting as the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person. We must become expressions of that same true light and glory in the midst of our world. Who we are is more important than what we can do. Who we are will determine what we can and will do, but mere doing will not define who we really are. We must keep our focus on God as our Father, Jesus as His Son, and the Holy Spirit as our comforter in the midst of this world. If we put our focus on some created thing, we are going to fashion and form God in the likeness and image of that created thing. It is only when we focus on God that we become fashioned and formed in His likeness and image.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

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