The Focused Life

What is the focus of your life? Don't read on until you have answered that question..........have you answered it? Now - does your life - your choices - your lifestyle support that focus, or do they contradict that focus?

In our reading today in 1 Corinthians 9 we were introduced to a man who was focused. He is the Apostle Paul, and everythng about this chapter suggests he had a focus that he really lived out.

What was Paul's focus? We get hints from verses like the following:

9:12 - Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. (There is a strong focus on seeing the gospel move forward.)

9:16 - Paul succinctly says, "Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel." (He is obviously focused on proclaiming the gospel to others.)

9:19 - Numerous times in this verse and the verses that follow Paul says, "...that I might win more of them." (He lived to see others affect by the gospel.)

9:23 - Paul says, "I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessing."

Now was all this more than a mantra for Paul. Did he actually live it out? The answer screaming out from this chapter is an absolute "yes". Even as he says in verse 26 "So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air," Paul disciplined his life to accomplish the goal God set before him.

So committed was Paul to this goal that he would gladly give up his rights. At the beginning of the chapter Paul speaks of different rights he had as an apostle of Christ, but Paul says he would gladly give them all up. Paul lived for something greater than his rights. He lived for the gospel, and if his rights got in the way of the flourishing of the gospel, Paul laid his rights down.

In a day and age where we fight for rights (women's rights, gay rights, children's rights, immigrant's rights,.....) it is amazing to see a man who lived for something beyond his rights. He was a true servant of Christ whose life matched his stated focus.

May God help us all, first to embrace a godly focus - to embrace a life that is given to proclaiming the gospel in word and deed. And then may He help us to live out this focus. May others see in us a demonstation of the gospel. May they see that there is something vastly more important to us that our rights or our pleasures.

The same Christ who equipped Paul for this focused way of life lives in us. May we know His grace and strength as we live out His calling on our lives.