Time to Focus - Psalm 4

Here's the link to this week's Psalm - Psalm 4

If you read it, you'll realize that it's very very short. If I had to choose a word that described the entire psalm, i would have to say "focus." Studying in school, I recently looked over the properties of telescopes and all that nonsense. Basically, with any telescope you take one far away object and focus on it ... nothing else. If King David were here, I'm sure he would agree that we could all learn to focus on God just a little bit better.

Verses 1-2: David cries out to God to answer his prayers because he's eager for that communication - how many of us are that excited about prayer? Hmmm ... Even though God doesn't answer immediately, we'll learn that David also has the patience and faith to understand that God will answer his prayers in perfect time. Quickly though, we see he gets distracted. Basically, the people David is surrounded by are not supportive of his faith. His love for God is nothing but a joke to his peers. As he pursues holiness, they pursue lies. As he pursues God, they pursue sin. Sound familiar? The world hasn't changed much. Even going to a Christian school, I found that loving Jesus and pursuing a life that would glorify God was never the popular thing to do; however, it's no excuse to stop. With reading Daniel and even studying the gospel message, we'll see time and time again that regardless of where the world would have us cast our attention, our FOCUS should always be on God (sometimes much easier said than done).

Verses 3-4: Here's what I'm talking about. We don't live in a perfect world. We live on a planet filled with people who have various views on 'god' ... whether or not they call it that is a different story. People will sin against you. People will make you angry, but David says to chill out and FOCUS. Basically, don't let emotions pull you into sin (once again, easier said than done). We should be offended when the world mocks our God, we should be upset, but this is no excuse to take our eyes off of God. Even Jesus' ministry in the gospel message clearly tells us to love our neighbors, no matter who they might be (Luke 10). We are to pursue a righteous lifestyle, for which God will bless us abundantly. When the world stands up against us to challenge our God, it's not our battle to fight - we won't win, but He will. God hears the prayers of the righteous and he calls them his own!

Verses 5-8: We finish out the chapter hearing offering "the right sacrifices" ... well what does that mean? If you've looked at the white board in the Amped room recently, you've seen an awesome verse (Luke 9:24). If I were to explain this sacrifice, it would be similar to the sacrifice Jesus talks about. We're to die to ourselves and take up the cross. We're to take all our worries and frustrations and give them to God. We're to FOCUS on Him. In return, God gives us peace, shelter, love, and joy ... unmatched by anything of this world.

We can only give our attention to one thing in this world ...

my advice: FOCUS ON GOD

-Chris