For a season of life, I worked as a semi-professional photographer. I was self-taught because I figured I could just do it. One of the toughest lessons for me was how to get the focus exactly right. To achieve this, you must figure out what subject you want to be in focus. Do you want the background or foreground in focus? I find that this has a deeper meaning behind it too. What are you focusing on?
When we focus on Christ, our life seems whole. Even when everything is crashing down around us and it might seem like we should be panicking, the arms of the King of Heaven sustain us and help keep us upright. Take Peter for example. As he was walking on the water to Jesus and his eyes were focused upon Jesus', he was walking perfectly fine upon the waves. The second his focus shifted from Jesus to the storm around him, he began to sink. When his focus moved from the love of Christ to his circumstances, he started drowning in them.
On the other hand, when we begin to focus on ourselves, our own sin, and our "badness", we end up being swallowed by expectations, standards, and our own self-worth. The goodness of God will never be outdone by our badness. To put it bluntly, the grace of the King of Heaven will always be bigger than our sins. When we focus on His grace rather than our sin, we begin to live a more free life.
That's not to condone sin. In Romans 6:1-2, Paul speaks on this by saying that we should not sin so that grace may abound. He asks, "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" When we truly begin to focus on the grace of God, we have no choice but to fall in love with who He is and our hearts begin to change to look more like Jesus'. At the end of the day, isn't that the goal? Being more like Jesus should be the goal of every believer.
Jesus didn't die for you to wallow in your sin. Begin to focus on how good He is rather than how sinful you are. At the end of the day, He will always be greater than your sin and my sin. My prayer is that we begin to focus on who God is rather than our sin. We'll never impress God with trying to keep a rule book but we can follow Him in everything. That means our focus has to stay on Him. May we begin to focus on His grace and not our own iniquity. When we focus on Him, our lives seem whole. May we rest in His grace and not our sin. Much love and God bless.
