Pay Attention And Stay Focused

Revelation 2:29
We are now in “The Book of Revelation”. One may ask the question: exactly what is “The book of Revelation” and what is it all about? The very best answer as always is the on given by God’s word. Revelation 1:1-3 gives us the answer so let’s check it out (The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who later hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.)

As we can clearly see it was written to further reveal Jesus Christ and to show what must shortly take place. Notice it is also the only book of scripture where there is a blessing promised for those who hear and keep (meaning obey) what is written specifically in this book.

Many years ago I was an owner and instructor in a martial arts school. There were two things that my students could do, and it would in most cases guarantee their success.

PAY ATTENTION
STAY FOCUSED

This was because if they truly paid attention to my instructions, they would know, understand and be able to perform the proper exercises and moves; and if they stayed focused on the training at hand (not being distracted), then they will develop the necessary skill, strength and stamina needed to be a successful martial artist. However I noticed that the ones who missed these two simple key points were always lacking many key attributes a martial artist should have.

In Revelation Chapter two we see the same thing happening on a spiritual realm. In this chapter as well as chapter three we see Jesus address seven churches, and every church accept two are reprimanded by Jesus for losing their focus and thereby developing short comings, which range from losing the love they first had for Christ, to being tolerant of extremely sinful behavior.

Jesus had one final thing to say to all of these churches, as well as all who may hear or read of His reprimand: Revelation 2:29 (He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches)

Basically Jesus is telling us to: Pay attention and stay focused.

This is the bottom line: Being a Christian is very simple. Once we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior we simply need to follow His lead in every area of our lives. We can be aware of the direction he is leading us by paying attention, as we focus on four key things:

Prayer
Truly studying His word
Spending time with other Christians building our faith.
Sharing our faith

As we pay attention to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and stay focused upon these key things we will find great success in our walk with The Lord. However if we allow ourselves to be distracted by the world and our daily routine, then we will find ourselves not paying attention, and losing our focus on these four key areas in our walk with Christ, and as a result we will end up finding many short comings in our walk with Christ, and as Jesus did with five of the seven churches we will be rebuked by The Lord. Therefore before it ever gets to that point us remember to: PAY ATTENTION AND STAY FOCUSED