Praise the Lord for the Month of January
and new beginnings. My wife celebrated her birthday on the 11th of this month.
Our granddaughter Ada will celebrate her 4th birthday tomorrow, January 16. It
is all of His grace and mercy. It has been cold, yet it has been very fresh
and invigorating. It will be warming up by this weekend.
The Lord blessed us with a sweet fellowship
and thought provoking Bible Study yesterday. Praise the Lord for the new life
we have in Him and because of Him. We are called to celebrate this life in
Jesus. We are called to invite others to come to Jesus and receive this new
Life by faith through grace.
We live in a fast-paced and furious world. We
live in a fleeting world. We live in an
often frightening world. We are called pay attention to Jesus. We are invited,
"this is my well beloved Son Listen to Him". Life is a matter of what we give
our attention to.
Simone Weil was a French Jewish woman who is
widely recognized as one of the most brilliant and original minds of the 20th
century. She recorded a diary of her thoughts and observations, and in her
chapter entitled, "Attention and Will," she is convinced our attention to life
is much more important than our will. The will only controls a few muscles, but
attention changes our whole understanding of life.
She describes her method of understanding of
life, of images, of symbols, of events in history is not to try to understand
them. She advises us to look at them, to give our attention to them, to keep
our attention on them until suddenly a light dawns and comprehension and
understanding flows over us. "Generally speaking, a method for the exercise of
the intelligence consists of looking at, of pay attention to."
Jesus took three of His disciples up onto the
mountain with Him where they turned their attention toward Him. On that
mountain the light broke upon them and they began to see what is really there.
Previously they thought they knew what was happening in Jesus. They had
declared their allegiance to their own notion of the work of the Messiah, as in
Peter's confession. Then Jesus began to tell them about the suffering,
rejection, and love that would not be received, about a grace that would be
refused because the grace could not claim to be deserved, about a forgiveness
that was not wanted if it was going to be offered to others, as well. With this
weighing upon their minds, these disciples turned their confused and frustrated
attention upon Jesus. The longer they looked, the more they saw what was
truly there. The more attention they focused on Jesus the more they learned and
realized; the more they understood, the more they were blinded by the mystery
that here in this life was the love and power of God at work. On that mountain
the more attention they gave Jesus the more they were overwhelmed by the power
of God's glory in the mission of Jesus. The attention on Jesus brought an
understanding of how the Law of Moses and the words of the prophets were lifted
up, fulfilled, completed and transformed by the grace and forgiveness presented
by Jesus. There on that mountain as they kept their attention on Jesus they
heard with a divine authority that this Jesus truly spoke in the love and power
of God's will, so they were to listen to Him.
When we pay attention to Jesus and live in Him
under His authority, we are surprised by " His Joy". We get to encounter our
Lord afresh and anew and to have "Jesus Moments". The more attention we pay to
Jesus and to those around us the more we come to share the attitude and love of
God for others .
The movie Dead Man
Walking was the story of a nun who gives her attention to a
death row inmate, and as she gives him her attention she develops an affection,
a compassion for the inmate. The more attention and comprehension of the man's
life, the more understanding and forgiveness she has for him, and the more
sympathy and grace she finds in her dealings with the man. The more attention
we give to Jesus, our Lord, the more we discover that in Him we have seen the
fullness of God's love for all of us and that in Him we have seen the best of
our selves; we have seen how we are to live at our fullest. Where we give our
attention to others, when we really give our attention, the Lord uses us to
bring out the best in them by turning their attention to Jesus.
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/9g4eqKDkDiw
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