Where’s Your Focus || Worship Helpers || Part 2

I want to talk about how we can lose focus on our faith because we choose to focus on things that aren’t God. In our eyes, these things may be good or not, but they may not include God. We will be looking at how we can focus on God when He doesn’t seem to be there for us. 

Our worship aid for today is “Praying with Photos.” 

James 2:8-10 says: “You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ But when you show favoritism, you are committing a sin, and by that same law you are exposed as a lawbreaker. Anyone who tries to keep all of the Law but fails at one point is guilty of failing to keep all of it.” This is an action that takes much faith, right? Loving others can be hard, especially when they may not agree with your beliefs or act like you would expect them to.

What about those times, though, where the 2nd half of the rule is tough? We hear that we should love others as we love ourselves. What happens if you don’t love yourself? What do you do if you don’t like who you are? I know I’m not supposed to mistreat others, but I treat myself that way. I think faith even plays a more significant role in that. We have to learn what those things we look negatively at ourselves are, which takes much faith because it’s scary. We have to learn what can be given to God to take care of, which is scary because we release that control. We have to be open to wanting to make the change, which is scary because of how uncomfortable it can be and how scary it is. Often, for me, it takes more faith to love ourselves than to love others because we know what it’s like to feel unloved. We don’t want that for anyone else. We love others how we want to love ourselves.

A lot of this takes faith, and as we know. Faith without works is dead. Faith in our actions can help us overcome. Faith in our actions can help us accomplish God’s good works. Faith in our actions can help us see whom God says we are. As you reflect in prayer and during our time of reflection, may you see how faith works for you? Ask yourself these challenging questions that the picture represents. See where your focus is. Amen.