FOCUS AHEAD!

FOCUS AHEAD!

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. —Luke 9:62

“Remember Lot’s wife!” (Luke 17:32). She looked back and it cost her her life. “But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul” (Hebrews 10:38).  

Consider those times you passed by a garden or a large field that was just planted.   What did the rows look like? More than likely they were straight rows. Now imagine going by a large field with most of the rows nice and straight and then this one row veering off and crossing all the other rows. Well, you would know something was wrong with the one who did that row and it affected the appearance of all the other rows!

Last year they were repainting the lines on the roads in the area where we live.   It must have been somebody new painting the lines. The middle double yellow lines on the road were crooked in many places, places where they should have been straight! It was the same with the white lines on the side of the road. They were not even. When somebody who has painted lines for some time does it, they look natural to the road design. These lines did not look natural to the road design and really caught your eye.

Just as it does not look right in fields where furrows are crooked or lines on the road are not straight where they are supposed to be, so it is not right when someone starts off serving our Lord and then “looks back.” The work is not what it is suppose to be and the service is not faithful and what is suppose to be accomplished is not being accomplished.   All because the focus of the person is not ahead on what the Lord desires, but looking back on what they desire.

Lot’s wife looked back to the things she was leaving behind in Sodom when told not to. Instead of looking ahead to the rescue our gracious Lord was giving her, she looked back in disobedience and it cost her her life. Destruction occurs when we do not “lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us.” Instead, “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Keep our eyes ahead on Jesus and we will show by those actions we are “fit for the kingdom of God” by being and doing what He desires.   Our furrows will be straight, putting our hands to the plow and looking ahead, not behind!

Dear Father may I keep my eyes fix ahead on Jesus plowing, running, serving as You have set out the race before me. May this be so in the power of Your Holy Spirit and in the authority of Jesus my Lord.   Yes, so be it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLX83HbefrI&list=UUf1NPIFOBwzTLVQiEDnq4Cw&index=13