Focus: Truth of Love

by Minister Melanie Dees Campbell
Ark Ministries Hope of the World

Our focus should align with God’s purpose. Many get stressed during difficult times or when confronting upsetting situations, but we don’t have to stay stressed or “camp out” in it; if we maintain our focus on our faith in the Lord, continuing to love and praise him. The Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Yeshua/Jesus who is salvation, the word made flesh loves us.
There is a purpose for what we as a nation, a community, are going through during this pandemic. God has ordained it for us to be here at this time for his greater purpose. Keeping our focus on the Lord, we can deepen our relationship with him as his will is accomplished. We may not understand the processing, and there are endless discussions, opinions, and blame among believers, but let us remember that everything is about God’s plan rather than ours.
C.S. Lewis, the famous author who left atheism and accepted Jesus/Yeshua as the Messiah/Christ wrote, “There are two kinds of people those who say to God ‘Thy will be done’ and those too who God says, ‘All right then, have it your way.’”
Praying the, Our Father, do we not say ‘thy will be done?’ For God’s will to be done on earth as it is heaven, things here shift and change, which may be scary because of the unknown in it. Let us remember what is known: God is love. I don’t mean God loves, which he does, but that is what he is; God is love. (1 John 4:7-21) Praying ‘thy will be done’ is when we can focus our love on the Lord. God doesn’t love us only when we are behaving well (he loves us enough to call us to repent). After all, God’s love goes beyond feeling or emotion since he is love, perfect love. Times can be difficult, but when we focus our attention, our minds, our hearts on God praising him, we will experience the habitation of his love.
Yeshua/Jesus (Matthew 22:33-40) taught from Deuteronomy 6:4-7, that loving the Lord completely fulfilled the law and for that alone we should praise God. Practicing, obeying the law of love towards God and our neighbors results in an inner assurance, a peace to see us through the valleys of life. When we read Psalms 22: 1-5, Psalm 22:3, we can see that God inhabits the praises of his people. Yet nowhere in the scriptures does Yeshua/Jesus teach us to exalt the Father only during good times, we are to praise him in all circumstances, even through the hard times.
It is not a matter of us telling God what we want but instead submitting ourselves to him. God’s purpose will be accomplished. Our life journey is to seek his will for our lives and embrace it by obedience. We are assured of his love for us because we know the Lord died for us.
How we accept life changes is our choice; we can embrace everything with the love of God in our hearts or make ourselves miserable by complaining and self-pity. We are enriched by seeing God’s hand in everything. There is something we can all do together during this time as we cry out to God, and that is to praise him. Let us focus on the Lord purposing our love to him and remember;
Psalm 22:5 They cried to you and were saved; in you, they trusted and were not disappointed.
Blessings and Shalom