Change Focus

I have a questions that I often wonder to myself. Am I so consumed with my own life (my wants, desires, and ambitions) that I flat out miss what God wants to do in and through me? While many people may read that statement and automatically hammer me for my doubt, I think it is a necessary doubt because it continually pushes me to change my focus about my life. I think we become so good at living our lives the way we want to that we are able to justify everything we do through the lens of this is God's desire for my life. God wants me to prosper, He wants me to succeed, he wants me to be happy. We become so good at it that we no longer think about what we are doing or why we are doing it. Having this constant nagging doubt in the back of my mind though forces me to engage the fact that what I desire out of life isn't always what God desires.

To be honest I want God to continue to hammer me with that doubt until I only see through His Kingdom eyes. I want to advance God's Kingdom, not my own. I want to see miracles, lives transformed, and people come to know Christ, and I know that can't happen if I'm only serving myself. I don't want to fall into the trap that the disciples did in Acts 1. They had wrapped up their own agenda to establish the Kingdom of Israel into God's agenda which was the salvation of the world. Jesus had to shake them out of that and refocus their attention on what truly mattered, His kingdom. The Holy Spirit is the key to this. We have to ask the Holy Spirit to begin to hit us with the continual question of are we living with God's mission in mind or our own? We need the Holy Spirit to achieve this and that's why Jesus replied to the Disciples in Acts 1 with the Holy Spirit.

My challenge to you today is to simply write down the question, "Whose Kingdom am I serving?" somewhere where you will look at it all day long. Anytime a situation arises or just through out the day, look at that question and evaluate your life in that moment. If something comes up where you can impact God's kingdom rather than your own, act on it, step out, and see what God does.

Here's your group Question: If you had to put a percentage by it how much time do you think we as Christians spend worrying about our own kingdom rather than God's? What can you do to change that in your own life?