Monthly Archives: February 2019

Clear Focus, Part 6: Keep Seeking (#963)

Clear Focus, Part 6: Keep Seeking (#963)
Good morning! We are going to continue our series on having a clear focus for the year. We started this just before the new year began and we’ll keep it up for a number of more sessions. And the purpose of this is, so as we go about our daily lives, where there are so many distractions. We, each week, at least have at least one thing were we can clearly focus on God and His word. And there are obviously many things in God’s word, but it is hard to think of them all at once. So we try to have one or two things to think about and focus on, that we know are worthwhile and are godly. Then if everything else in life goes great, hallelujah. If things aren’t going the way we want, at least we have one thing worthwhile, biblical, and godly to focus on. And the topic this week will be to keep seeking God. And I checked back in my notes, because I have notes from several decades of teaching these Sunday morning fellowships and this is a topic I seem to teach about every other year, on average. Its just such an important one that keeps coming back. And there are many things like that in God’s word, that although we may have read about them, we sometimes get a little distracted and forget them. And to just go back and look at it again and see what else we can learn, because every time we look at something in the scriptures, we’ve grown; we have a slightly different perspective, so we see it a little different way because of the understanding of life. And, even if it comes out the same way in our minds, its still worthwhile to look at it again. So, we’re going to talk about continuing to seek God; just keep seeking. So we’ll start in Deuteronomy chapter four in verse 23.

As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20190224.  All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Deuteronomy 4:23-31      If you seek the Lord, you will find him (vs. 29)
I Chronicles 16:10-12        Seek the LORD and his strength
Psalms 9:9-10                     Thou hast not forsaken them that seek thee
Psalms 34:10                       The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing
Psalms 34:22                       None of them that trust [Heb. Chasa: seek refuge, flee for protection, put trust in, confide or hope in] in him shall be desolate [guilty, offended]
Psalms 63                            Early [diligently] will I seek thee (vs. 1).
Marrow & fatness (vs. 5): the richest of foods (NIV), a rich feast (NRSV)
A portion for foxes (vs. 10): food for jackals
Proverbs 8:12-21                Those that seek me (wisdom) early [diligently] shall find me (vs. 17)
Jeremiah 29:10-14              Ye shall seek me and find me (vs. 13)
Matthew 7:7-8                     Seek, and ye shall find (vs. 7)
Colossians 3:1-3                 Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth (vs. 1)
Hebrews 13:14                   Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come
Teaching
Clear Focus, Part 6: Keep Seeking (#963)

Clear Focus, Part 5: Love God (#962)

Clear Focus, Part 5: Love God (#962)
Well, welcome everybody. Here we’re going to continue our series on having a clear focus, which we want to have for this great year in 2019. We want to know what to focus on, so our brains don’t get more scattered than normal. And the last couple of sessions have focused on the love of God. One session we talked about how God loves us, another session we talked about how we should love others, and the focus today will be on the importance of us loving God. And I just remember so many times in my life just sitting there, by myself with nothing going on, and how happy I was just because I knew how much I loved God and He really loved me. And that’s really about all that mattered, because there are many other things in life besides that, but if you have that as your foundation: that you really love God and that you know He really loves you, you can get through about anything. Because so many other things in life are going to change, so many other things in life you have no control over. You know, like look at all the great political fights going on in our nation and around the world; we can have opinions on it, but we really have no control over it. So why let myself get so upset about it, because if the politics go one way or the other, I’m just going to be miserable. And, whenever any of us listen to the news, some things we’re happy about, some things we’re mad about, but we can’t do anything about it. So, we might as well be glad that God really loves us and we can really love God. And if we have that as the basis of our lives, then everything else just fits.
I got a text from somebody this week from somebody that that is going through some challenges and just said: “I’m so angry” and then she said: “how do I forgive people?” And I just told her some very simple things: well, remember how God has forgiven you; remember that Jesus Christ gave his life and shed his blood for you; but most of all, pray that God will direct your paths, so you can move on with the rest of your life. Because what has happened in the past and what other people do, you really have no control over. Because there is always stuff in the past we don’t like and there’s always people doing things we don’t like. That’s life. But, we can certainly pray that those thing will work out, but we have no control over them. So, if I decide that I’m going to have a miserable day because someone is doing something don’t like, or because something happened in the past I don’t like, I’m just going to be miserable. But if I decide that God loves me and I can love God and that is the foundation of my life, that’s always with me and nobody can take that away. I can chose to let it go out of my life, if I don’t want to focus on loving God, and I don’t want to focus on how much he loves me, but nobody can take that away.
There are a lot of other things people can take away; I’ve had jobs where the boss took it away, transferred me to a different project, laid me off, gave somebody else my job. We’ve all had that kind of thing. Or, there is a person you really like doing something with and then one day they decide that they don’t want to do that with you anymore. We’ll, that’s over. And you can get all mad about it, but it is over. So you can decide that: I’m miserable because of what that person did, or you can say: “so what, God will provide something else for me.” Look at Elijah when God told him to go tell the king, king Ahab that it wasn’t going to rain. And Ahad sent the whole army after him. We’ll God sent him out to the wilderness, by a brook; and He had the ravens cater his food for, I don’t know how long it was, for weeks of months. But then the brook ran dry, and the ravens didn’t bring food. So, what’s he going to do? He didn’t have to give up; God told him to go find that widow woman in Sidon. He went there and they had a little, a very small portion of meal, and they managed to eat off of it. He, the woman and her son for many days. God came through.
And there is always things changing in life. And obviously we want to try very hard to try to get things to go the way we want to in life and sometimes we can and a lot of times we can’t. But, what we can do is we can always love God. And we can know God always Loves us. So, that is what we’re going to have a very clear focus on today and in the weeks ahead of loving God. So, let’s start in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter six…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20190210.  All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Deuteronomy 6:4-5           Love the Lord thy God
Deuteronomy 7:7-9           Them that love him
Deuteronomy 10:12-16     Love him and serve
Deuteronomy 11:1-25       Love the Lord
Deuteronomy. 30:15-20    Life and good
Joshua 22:1-5                       Be diligent to love the Lord your God
I Chronicles 10:1-14            How did Saul die?
Matthew 22:34-40               First and great commandment: love God
Romans 8:28                        All things work together for good
I John 5:2-3                           For this is the love of God
Teaching
Clear Focus, Part 5: Love God (#962)