What is Capturing Your Attention?

SPECIAL WEEKEND EDITION: What is Capturing Your Attention?

Howard was a quiet, unassuming man. By training he was an engineer.
His skills were best used in the tool and die business he owned. Not long after my wife and I began working in the church he attended, he asked me to come over for a tour of his business.

When I got there he handed me a little piece of metal with a tiny hole running through it. I learned that it was a small valve he made to NASA specifications for the Lunar Landing Module. His firm actually made a piece of the Module that still sits on the moon! As he described it to me, I learned that it was milled to less than 0.002 of an inch.

I thought about Howard as I read Colossians 3:1-3. You don't machine anything to 0.002 of an inch without a clear mind and focused attention.
The Apostle tells us to live life with that kind of focus. First he tells us to "Seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God." His clear teaching instructs us that some things are more worthy of our pursuit than others. Men who follow Jesus don't need to wonder about the pursuit. Those things which are above deserve our focus more than things that have no lasting value.

The Apostle goes on to tell us to "Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." We don't need to live with divided minds that waffle between two worlds. Heaven in our goal. We choose to set our minds, to clear them of all other attractions and focus on those things that have eternal value. The instruction is clear: live by the "seek and set" principle!

Howard lived for his business; he loved it. It was his baby. I was impressed with his skill and knowledge. Something else impressed me even more. As much as he loved his business and his family, he loved Jesus more. He lived with incredible focus in his business life, and he was tenacious about doing the best possible job. His love for Jesus and his focus on eternal values never got lost in the business. Putting a tiny little valve on the moon didn't define his life. He practiced the "seek and set" principle.

What focus captured your attention when you got up this morning?

Today's Special Weekend Edition of Freedom Fighters was written by Pastor John Strain, First Baptist Toms River.

Great Quote: Prayer is the midwife of mercy, that helps to bring it forth. Matthew Henry